On and on the car travelled, smoothly, almost noiselessly. Snow was falling—it had been falling for two hours, the chauffeur had told us before we started—though not very heavily. The night was quite still. We had long passed the tiny hamlets a mile or two from Newbury and were now on the five miles' stretch of winding road between there and Holt Stacey. Soon we passed the sign-post close to Holt Stacey railway station. As we sped through the village some moments later the houses and cottages all wrapped in darkness seemed to spring forward into the light one after another as though to peer at us as we shot by. Now Holt Stacey lay behind us, and only four miles remained. From the time we had left Newbury no vehicle of any kind had passed us, nor any human being, nor had we overtaken any. Dulcie, nestling close to me in the warm, comfortable brougham, was more than half asleep. I too felt drowsy, and I fear that more than once my chin had dropped forward with a jerk. Suddenly the car swerved abruptly to the right. So tightly were the brakes applied at the same instant that we were both thrown forward almost on to the floor. The car lurched, rose up on one side, then as I instinctively threw my arms about Dulcie to protect her if possible from what seemed about to be a very serious accident, the car righted itself and stopped dead. "Good heavens! What has happened?" I exclaimed, as the chauffeur, who had sprung off his seat, opened the door. Dulcie still lay in my arms, trembling with fear, though from the first she had not uttered a sound, or in the least lost her head. "Someone lying in the road, sir," he answered, "drunk, I shouldn't wonder. He was half covered with snow, and I all but ran over him." "Lying in the snow! Why, he'll die if he's left there," I exclaimed. "Go and have a look at him, and then come back to me." Several minutes passed, and the chauffeur did not return. Becoming impatient, I opened the door of the brougham, and called out. A moment later the man appeared. The electric torch he carried—one he used when occasion arose to examine the car in the dark—was still switched on. The hand that held it trembled a little, and in the light which shone down inside the brougham I noticed that the chauffeur looked singularly pale. "Could you kindly step out for a moment, please, sir?" he said in a curious tone. Guessing that something serious must be amiss to prompt him to ask me to step out into the deep snow in my evening shoes, I got out at once, in spite of Dulcie's entreating me not to do so and get my feet soaked. When I had shut the car door, and we had walked a few paces, the chauffeur stopped abruptly. "Sir," he said in a hoarse voice. "Well, what?" I asked, also stopping. "Sir—it's Churchill, the gardener. Poor fellow! It's awful! He's dead, sir, quite cold. He—he's been killed—_murdered_!" CHAPTER XIII THE BARON