"Well, of all the surprising things! Then, Mr. Armathwaite must have known about the house when he came in yesterday?" Yesterday! While the three men were gazing at each other in the Walkers' office, Armathwaite and Marguerite Ogilvey were escorting Percy Whittaker down the moor road, and even wily James Walker, junior, little guessed what a whirlwind had enwrapped the new tenant of the Grange since, as the older Walker had put it, "he came in yesterday." "No, I'm jiggered if he did!" cried the younger man viciously. "Armathwaite had never heard the name of the place before we mentioned it. I'll swear that in any court of law in the land." "And I'd bear you out," agreed his father. "Not that I can see any reason why it should come into court. He paid up promptly, and we have nothing to bother about until the next quarter is due." "I'm not so sure of that," was the well-calculated answer. "What are you driving at, Jim?" "This. He's no more Meg Garth's cousin than I am. There's some queer game bein' played, and I'm a Dutchman if there isn't a row about it. I tell you, Meg Garth is there, alone, and, when I met her, she calmly informed me that her father was alive. She nearly jumped down my throat because I said he wasn't, and that fellow, Armathwaite, took her part. The Jacksons, too, mother and daughter, are mixed up in it somehow. If Stephen Garth is living, who is the man that was found hanged in the Grange two years ago, and why is he buried in Bellerby churchyard in Stephen Garth's name?" "I say, Jim, you should be careful what you're saying." Walker, senior, was troubled. He, like Dobb, fancied that strong liquor was inducing this fantasy, yet his son seldom erred in that respect; to-day his manner and appearance gave no other signs of intemperance. "I'm tellin' you just what took place. Who should know Meg Garth if _I_ didn't? She called Armathwaite 'Bob,' and he called her 'Meg,' and they were as thick as thieves; but they left me in no doubt as to old Garth bein' still on the map. In fact, we had a regular row about it." "By Jove!" cried Banks, moistening his thin lips with his tongue. "This promises to be a sensation with a vengeance. Have you told the police?" "No. It's not my business." "I'm not so sure of that. Why, man, Stephen Garth left a letter for the coroner. Dr. Scaife was inclined to question the cause of death, but Mr. Hill closed him up like an oyster. Don't you see what it means? If Stephen Garth is living now, some unknown man was murdered in the Grange. He could neither have killed himself nor died from natural causes, since no one in their senses would have tried to conceal his death by letting it appear that they themselves were dead."