"You propose that Miss Marty, here, should accompany you back to Plymouth?" "That was the suggestion in my mind. And you, too, sir--that is, if you can make it square with your engagements. Mrs. Basket will be happy to extend her hospitality. . . . Two heads are better than one, sir. We will prosecute our investigations together . . . with the help of the constabulary, of course. We should communicate with the constabulary, or our position may eventually prove an awkward one." "Yes, yes; the man having disappeared from your house." "Quite so. Apart from that, I see no immediate necessity for making the matter public; but am willing to defer to your judgment." "That is a question we had better leave until we have seen the Chief Constable at Plymouth. To publish the news here and now in Troy would cause an infinite alarm, possibly an idle one. By the time we reach Plymouth our friend may have reappeared, or at least disclosed his whereabouts." Alas! at Plymouth, where they arrived late that night, no news of the missing one awaited them. Mrs. Basket, her face white as a sheet, her ample body swathed in a red flannel dressing-gown, herself opened the door to the travellers as soon as the chaise drew up. For hours she had been expecting it, listening for the sounds of wheels. Almost before the introductions were over she announced with tears that she had nothing to tell. For a while she turned her thoughts perforce from the disaster to the business of making ready the bedrooms for her guests and preparing a light supper. But the meal had not been in progress five minutes, before, in the act of loading Miss Marty's plate, she sat back with a gasp. "Oh, and I was forgetting! Misfortunes, they say, never come singly, and--would you believe it, my dear?--as I was walking in the garden this afternoon, thinking to calm my poor brain, I happened to look at the fish-pond and what do I see there but two of the gold-fish floating with their chests uppermost!" "Chests, madam?" queried Dr. Hansombody. But sharp as his query was came a cry from Mr. Basket. "The fish-pond?" He thrust back his chair, a terrible surmise dawning in his eyes. "And the fish, you say, floating--" "Chest uppermost," repeated Mrs. Basket, "and dead as dead." "She _means_, on their backs," her husband explained parenthetically; "a fashion de parlour, as the French would say. Did you examine the pond? Heavens, Maria! did you examine the pond?" "Elihu, you make my flesh creep! Why should I examine the pond? You don't mean to tell me--" "My shrimping-net! Don't sit shivering there, Maria, but bring me my shrimping-net! And a lantern!" Mr. Basket caught up a Sheffield-plated candle-sconce from the table, motioned the Doctor to fetch along its fellow, and led the way out to the front garden. The night outside was windless, but dark as the inside of a hat.