At any rate the visitor must have been admitted, because a long quarter of an hour elapsed before he came in sight again. He walked out slowly into the roadway, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, and glanced to right and left. Then, turning abruptly, he stared at the dwelling he had just quitted. What this slight but peculiar action signified was not hard to guess. Furneaux, indeed, put it into words. “Having warned Grant off Miss Doris Martin, and been cursed for his pains, the foreman of the jury does not trouble to await further evidence, but arrives at a true and lawful verdict straight off,” announced the little man. “We ought to hear things to-night,” said Peters. “We?” inquired Winter. “Yes. Didn’t I make it clear that I shared in the dinner invitation?” “No, and I’m—” “Don’t say it!” pleaded the journalist. “If I fell from grace to-day, remember my unswerving loyalty since the hour we met on the platform at Knoleworth! Haven’t I kept close as an oyster? And would any consideration on earth move me to publish an accurate and entertaining account of the roasting of Chief Inspector Winter by Wally Hart? Think what I’m sacrificing—a column of the best.” Winter bent a weighing look on the speaker. There was treason in the thought, as King James remarked to the barber who tried to prove his loyalty by pointing out how easily he might cut his majesty’s throat any morning. But Peters maintained the expression of a sphinx, and the big man relaxed. “The conditions are that not a word about this business appears in print, either now or in the future until we have a criminal in the dock,” he said. “Accepted,” said Peters. Furneaux laughed shrilly, even derisively, but him his colleague treated with majestic disdain. Then, the chemist having reentered the village, the group broke up, Peters to search his brains for “copy” which should be readable yet contain no hint of the new trail, Winter to take train to Knoleworth, and Furneaux to tackle Fred Elkin, who, he had ascertained earlier, would drive home from a neighboring hamlet about five o’clock. Elkin had returned when the detective reached the house, a somewhat pretentious place, half farm, half villa, and altogether horsey. The entrance hall bristled with fox masks and brushes. A useful collection of burnished bits and snaffles hung on a side wall. A couple of stuffed badgers held two wicker stands for sticks and umbrellas, and whips and hunting-crops were ranged on hooks beneath a 12-bore and a rook rifle. A pert maid-servant took Furneaux’s card, blanched when she read it, and forgot to close the door of the dining-room. Hence, the detective heard Elkin’s gruff comments: “What? _That_ chap? Wants to see me? Not more than I want to see him. Show him in.” Furneaux, looking very meek and mild, entered an apartment of the carpet-bag upholstery period. A set of six exceedingly good and rare sporting prints caught his eye.