Cannington gulped down a cup of tea and requested particulars. "You see I was in such a rage that I heard very little from the messenger," he explained apologetically. "All I gathered was that some woman had been murdered and robbed, and that you were suspected. I hurried along to tell the police that they were idiots, and----" "Oh, not such idiots," said I, pushing back my chair and lighting a cigarette. "You see I was caught red-handed by Mrs. Giles' husband." "Oh, sir," put in the greengrocer's wife deprecatingly. "Begin at the beginning," commanded Cannington, who was still eating with the healthy appetite of a young animal, "and go on to the end. I'm not clever enough to make up a story out of scraps." Thus adjured I detailed all that had taken place from the time I had left him at the Mess-room door on the previous day. He became so interested that he ceased to eat, and at the conclusion of my narrative jumped up from his chair with an ejaculation. "By Jove," said he, recalling our conversation in the Rippler, "adventures are to the adventurous, aren't they? This real life business beats any of your melodramas." "I agree. Truth is always more impossible than fiction." "An epigram doesn't meet the case," snapped Cannington. "It sums it up, my boy. Who could ever invent such a situation--I speak as a playwright, you understand. I could never have imagined the tragedy of an old woman killed by a hat-pin for the sake of her glass eye, much less the implicating of an inoffensive stranger, and the theft of his motor by the murderess." "You are sure she is guilty?" "Certainly! Who but a woman would use a hat-pin to slay, and who but a woman would have a hat-pin to use?" "But why should she kill the old woman?" "That question can only be answered when we know more about the lady in the white cloak, who bolted with my car." "Who is she?" "Helen of Troy, for all I know. What silly questions you ask, Cannington." "I'm not Sherlock Holmes," he retorted, "and I _did_ come on straight to help you through this business." "Forgive me, boy; you're a brick. What about your duties?" "I got leave from the adjutant. That's all right. What's to be done now?" "We must see Inspector Dredge, and look after my motor, which is still piled up in the field where the lady left it. Clever woman that. She knew that she might be traced by the number, and so got rid of the car. I daresay she footed it to Murchester, and went on to London by the night train." "In a white cloak she'd be traced." "If she was fool enough to wear it," said I dryly, "but I daresay we'll find that white cloak packed away in the car." "Come along and let us see," cried Cannington, greatly excited. "One moment. Mrs. Giles, what about Miss Destiny and her servant?" "She's not up yet, sir, and Lucinda has taken in her breakfast." "Is she returning to Burwain to-day?"