“Yes, sir. Yesterday, too, she spoke of Mr. Grant to Hobbs, the butcher, and Siddle, the chemist.” The two were closeted in the sitting-room of Robinson’s cottage, which was situated on the main road near the bridge. It faced the short, steep hill overhanging the river. A triangular strip of turf formed the village green, and the houses of Steynholme clustered around this and a side road climbing the hill. From door and windows nearly every shop and residence in the village proper could be seen. In front of the Hare and Hounds had gathered a group of men, and it was easy to guess the topic they were discussing. The superintendent, who did not know any of them, had no difficulty in identifying Hobbs, who looked a butcher and was dressed like one, or Tomlin, who was either born an innkeeper or had been coached in the part by a stage expert. A thin, sharp-looking person, pallid and black-haired, wearing a morning coat and striped trousers, must surely be Siddle, while a fourth, the youngest there, and of rather sporting guise, was apparently a farmer of a horse-breeding turn. “Who is that fellow in the leggings?” inquired the superintendent irrelevantly. He was looking through the window, and Robinson considered that the question showed a lack of interest in his statement, though he dared not hint at such a thing. “He’s a Mr. Elkin, sir,” he said. “As I was saying—” “How does Mr. Elkin make a living?” broke in the other. “He breeds hacks and polo ponies,” said Robinson, rather shortly. “Ah, I thought so. Well, go on with your story.” Robinson was irritated, and justly so. His superior had put him off his “line.” He took it up again sharply, leaving out of court for the moment the various rills of evidence which, in his opinion, united into a swift-moving stream. “The fact is, sir,” he blurted out, “there is an uncommonly strong case against Mr. John Menzies Grant.” “Phew!” whistled the superintendent. “I think you’ll agree with me, sir, when you hear what I’ve gathered about him one way and another.” Robinson was sure of his audience now. Quite unconsciously, he had applied the chief canon of realism in art. He had conveyed his effect by one striking note. The rest of the picture was quite subsidiary to the bold splurge of color evoked by actually naming the man he suspected of murdering Adelaide Melhuish. Chapter III. The Gathering Clouds Thus, it befell that Grant was not worried by officialdom until long after his housekeeper and her daughter had recovered from the shock of learning that they were, in a sense, connected at first hand with a ghastly and sensational crime.