[Illustration: "I CALLED HER AND PUT THE QUESTION."] "But if the cottage is yours," I said, at last, "how came that little scoundrel----" "That's just what I have come down to find out," he said. "Now, tell me, Mr. Oxenham, from whom did you take the cottage?" "From Mr. Joseph Scorer." "William, you mean; but that is a detail." "Joseph," said I. "Stay! I'll show you my agreement," and I went inside and got it. "Joseph?" he said, with knitted brow, as he perused the document; and, after a pause, "Then what the deuce has become of William? What kind of a man was he?" "Small, sharp, brown man, with one club foot." He nodded. "Which foot?" he asked. I had to cast back my thoughts. "Left," I said, at last. "No, right," said he. "Left; I am quite sure of it." He tapped the folded paper against his hand, and said-- "One of us is wrong. Scorer has been in my service for fifteen years, and I ought to know." "Suppose we ask my wife if she remembers?" I called her and put the question. "His left foot was the lame one," she said, after a thoughtful pause. "I can see him standing there"--she said it so decidedly that we involuntarily turned to look, but he was not there, except in her memory--"and it was his right shoulder that humped up. Yes, I am quite sure of it." "This is very curious," said Mr. Sawyer. "I am afraid there is something wrong. Besides, Scorer never could have done such a thing. He was as honest as the day." "And yet he let this cottage sixteen times over to sixteen different parties, and I have had the privilege, such as it is, of holding the fort against them all." "I can't believe William Scorer would do such a thing," he said, looking at us with eyes full of puzzled suspicion, as though he were not quite sure whether I had told him all I knew of the matter. "Joseph," said I. He tapped his foot impatiently, and we lapsed into silence. An idea struck me suddenly. "Is there a Joseph Scorer as well as a William?" I asked. He looked at me abstractedly. "There was a brother," he said at last, "and, if I remember rightly, a twin brother, but I have not heard of him for years. I do not think I ever saw him. I have an idea he went to the bad." Our eyes met and held one another, and my thought crossed his. "What do you suspect, Mr. Oxenham?" he asked. "I suspect that I met Joseph and you know William," I said. "But I left William in charge here." "And I found Joseph." "Then where is William?" "William is the missing link. Find him, and we get to the bottom of the matter." "Yes, that sounds common sense. Now, where is William?" That was by no means an easy question to answer. Mr. Joseph Scorer could probably have told us, but as the discovery of William was but the first step towards the discovery of Joseph, that fact did not advance us. The puzzle, however, solved itself in the simplest manner possible, and without any assistance from us.