"Miss Fosdyke's way, my lord--so far as I could gather from ten minutes' talk with her--is to tell people what to do," answered Polke drily. "She doesn't ask--she commands! We're to find her uncle--quick. At once. No pains to be spared. Money no object. A hundred pounds, spot cash, to the first man, woman, child, who brings her the least fragment of news of him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method. It's not a bad one--it's only rich young ladies who can follow it. So I've already put things in train. Handbills and posters, of course--and the town-crier. I suggested to her that by tonight, or tomorrow morning, there might be news of Mr. Horbury without doing all that. No good! Miss Fosdyke--she can tell you a lot inside a minute--informed me that since she was seventeen she had only had one motto in life. It's--do it now!" "Good!" laughed the Earl. "But--where are you going to begin?" "That's the difficulty," agreed Polke. "A gentleman walks out of his back garden into the dusk--and he's never seen again. I don't know. We must wait and see if anybody comes forward to say that he, she, or it saw Mr. Horbury after he left his house on Saturday night. That's all." "Somebody must have seen him," said the Earl. "Well, you'd think so, my lord," replied Polke, "but he could get away from the back of his orchard into the open country without being seen. The geographical position of our town's a bit curious, so your lordship knows. Here we are on a ridge. Horbury's garden and orchard run down to the foot of that ridge. At that foot is the river. There's a foot-bridge over the river, immediately opposite his orchard gate. He could cross that foot-bridge, and be in the wood on the other side in two minutes from leaving his house. That wood extends for a good mile into the country. Oh, yes! he could get away without being seen, and once in that country, why, he could make his way to one or other of half a dozen small railway stations. We shall telephone to all of them. That's all in the routine. But then, that's all supposing that he left the town. Perhaps he didn't leave the town." The Earl started, and Neale looked quickly up from a brown study. "Eh?" said the Earl. "Didn't leave the town?" "Speaking as a policeman," answered Polke, with a knowing smile, "I don't know that he even left his house. I only know that his housekeeper says he did. That's a very different matter. For anything we know--absolutely know!--Mr. Horbury may have been murdered in his own house, and buried in his own cellar." "You're not joking?" said Neale. "Or--you are!"