“Nothing more likely!” affirmed the Chief Constable, with the emphatic assurance of experience. “Village folk are the biggest gossips and scandalmongers under the sun! There isn’t a village in England that isn’t a perfect hot-bed of slander—born of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness! But—don’t you make any mistake, my lad!—village folk, in spite of that tendency, can be as close as ever they make ’em! You might as well try to get butter out of a dog’s mouth as try to extract a secret from them if they don’t want to tell it. Why, I would give you piles of proof of that out of my own experience! I remember one case that happened near here, not so long ago. A certain land-agent was shot at and badly wounded one night as he went home, and we’ve never yet found out who his assailant and would-be murderer was. But I haven’t the slightest doubt that nearly every man and woman in that place knows who he was—only they won’t say, because their chief regret is that the victim wasn’t finished off. There you are!” “But according to Mrs. Braxfield—and you seem to agree with her—these folks would tell for a five-pound note,” said Blick with a cynical laugh. “Why didn’t you try that in the case you mention?” “We may do yet,” replied the Chief Constable. “The victim himself seems inclined to hush the matter up, fearing worse things—but we may try a reward. In this Markenmore affair, however, Mrs. Braxfield is going to try a monetary offer—out of pure pique, I fancy!—and it won’t surprise me if something results. If I were you, Blick, I should keep my ears on the stretch during the next twenty-four hours. I don’t know what she’ll offer, but if it’s something substantial, there’ll be a vast amount of cupidity aroused amongst these rustics—I know ’em!” Blick got up from the elbow-chair in which, since Chilford’s abrupt departure, he had been sitting with his legs stretched out and his hands in his pockets, looking perplexed and somewhat disconsolate. “I may as well be going back then,” he muttered. “Hanged if I know even now, if we didn’t part with Mrs. Braxfield a bit too easily!” “She’ll not run away,” retorted the Chief Constable, with a significant nod of his head. “And if it’s all a piece of bluff——” He paused as a policeman entered the room and laid a card before him. “The gentleman’s waiting outside, sir,” said the policeman. The Chief Constable glanced at the card, started, and turned to Blick. “Sir Thomas Hodges-Wilkins!” he murmured surprisedly. “That big scientific chap!—Professor, from Cambridge, that that fellow Spindler told us about. What on earth can he want? Bring him in, Jarvis,” he went on. “Set a chair there.” He looked wonderingly at the detective. “Another development!” he muttered. “What now?”