“Pair of old tennis shoes that the housekeeper had given me,” replied Pegge. “Some gentleman had left ’em behind him.” “Very well,” said Blick. “Go on. You stopped dead——” “Stopped just where I was, stole in between the bushes, and looked into the drive. Then I see a man coming down it, from the side of the house, where there’s a door by which you can get out into the back gardens. He come right past me, walking on the grass path at the side of the gravel roadway.” “You saw him clearly?” “Considering it was night—a clear night, though—I see him as clearly as what I see you! That is—with a bit of difference, like.” “You saw him clearly enough to know who he was?” “I did!” “Well?” asked Blick, eyeing his informant closely. “Who was he?” Pegge looked with equal closeness at his questioner. “That German gentleman that’s staying with our missis!” he answered. “Baron von Eckhardstein?” “That’s him! The Baron we calls him.” “You’re absolutely certain of this, Pegge?” “Take my dying oath of it!” asserted Pegge. Blick refilled and lighted his pipe, and smoked in silence for a minute or two. “Well,” he said at last, “where did he go?” “Went a few yards down the drive, and then turned into a path that goes through the shrubberies towards the main road,” replied Pegge. “It comes out into the main road very nearly opposite the cottages, just beyond this place—the Sceptre. There’s a little iron swing-gate in the holly-hedge—you’ll maybe have noticed it? He’d come on to the road through that—about two hundred yards from here.” “And you say that was at about a quarter to two, Tuesday morning?” “At all about that,” affirmed Pegge. “It would be about six or eight minutes to, when I see him. ’Twas a quarter to, anyway, when I see the cob, and I wasn’t in his box many minutes. Then I went straight to get my tobacco-tin, and heard these footsteps.” “I suppose you thought it was a queer thing—a guest going out of the house at that time of night, didn’t you?” suggested Blick. “Uncommon queer, I thought!” agreed Pegge. “But then, ’twasn’t any concern of mine. And I shouldn’t ha’ taken much more notice of it if I hadn’t see him again.” “Oh!” said Blick. “Ah! You did see him again, then?” “I did—and when it was getting light, too—see him clear enough that time!” “And what time was that?” “We’ve a clock over our stables,” said Pegge. “It had just struck four.” “Four o’clock!” repeated Blick meditatively. “Um! And where did you see him at four o’clock? Same place?”