"It has," I confessed, very truthfully. "Sorry I spoke like a fractious brat. To make amends I'll let you take the Rippler to town." "Oh, that will be frabjious," said Cannington, who had lately been reading, "Alice through the Looking-glass." "Won't you come too?" "Thanks, no. I'm walking out to Mootley this afternoon." "Huh! I should think you had enough of walking. What's on?" "Mrs. Caldershaw's funeral." "They aren't losing much time in planting her," said Cannington, with a shrug. "It's only five days since the death. But I say, old son, don't you think you might give this business a rest? It's getting on your nerves, you know, and isn't good goods at the best." "Oh, that's all right, I only want to see the last of the poor woman." "And then?" Cannington's tone was highly suspicious. "I'll go over to Burwain." "After that girl?" I scratched my chin and eyed him severely. "See here, I'm not quite the infant you take me to be. Miss Monk's face attracted me, I admit, but that doesn't mean I am in love with her." "You talked enough about her anyhow." "All the more reason that _you_ shouldn't talk," I retorted. "I can say all I want to say for myself. Do stop rotting." Cannington nodded with an air of resignation. "I shan't say another word, Vance. Didn't think you were in earnest." "I am in earnest about searching out this mystery, if that is what you mean, and I go over to Burwain to-morrow to make a start." "With Miss Monk?" "Yes," I replied, feeling qualmish. "She was Mrs. Caldershaw's nursling, and may be able to throw some light on that glass eye. I feel convinced that therein lies the solution of the mystery." "The worst of you literary men," said Cannington, addressing the ceiling, "is that you talk too much like a book. Touched wood! touched wood!" He fled for the door, as I swung up a chair cushion. "Don't disarrange my hair, but come along to luncheon." I obeyed. "But don't tell anyone that I am going to Mootley," said I hastily. "Right oh. I'll take the Rippler and light out for town at two o'clock. I shall meet you at dinner, and then you can tell me all about the funeral." So it was arranged, and we made a very good meal. At least the boy did, being unworried with secret disagreeables; but I did not eat much myself. The knowledge of what was hidden in my second portmanteau lay heavily on my mind, and I fear I betrayed my discomfort, for Cannington remarked it. It occurred to me that a murderer would have to possess amazing nerve to conduct himself as an ordinary human being, seeing that I, with no crime on my mind, was so easily discomfited. . . . Of course, under the circumstances, I should have thought of a guilty "she" rather than of a guilty "he"; but I really could not bring myself to believe that Diana of the Ephesians had murdered her old nurse.