“Terrible business that about Mr. Berlyn and Mr. Pyke,” he essayed. “It must have set this town talking.” “It didn’t ’alf, sir. Everyone was sorry for the poor gentlemen. They was well liked, they was.” “And that was another terrible affair,” pursued French after the local tragedy had been adequately discussed, “that finding of the dead body in the crate. Extraordinary how the body could have been put in.” “I didn’t ’ear naught about that,” Gurney answered, with a sudden increase of interest. “You don’t mean the crate you was speaking about that day you was up at the works?” “No other. Keep it to yourself and I’ll tell you about it.” French became deeply impressive. “That crate that I was enquiring about was sent from here to Swansea. There it was called for by a man who took it on a lorry to a place called Burry Port and threw it into the sea. A fisherman chanced to hook it and it was brought ashore more than a month later. And when it was opened the dead body of a man was found inside.” “Lord save us! I read in the noospaper about that there body being found, but it fair beats me that the crate came from ’ere, it does.” French continued to enlarge on the tale. That Gurney’s surprise was genuine he felt certain. He could have sworn that the man had no inkling of the truth. But he marked, even more acutely than before, a hesitation or self-consciousness that indicated an uneasy mind. There was something; he felt sure of it. He glanced at the man with his shrewd, observant eyes and suddenly determined on directness. “Look here, Gurney,” he said. “Come over and sit on this seat. I have something important to say to you.” He paused as if considering his words. “You thought a good deal of your employers, those two poor men who were lost on the moor?” “An’ I had reason to. It wasn’t an accident ’appening in the execution of my dooty, as you might say, as made me lame and not fit to work. It was rheumatism, and they could ’ave let me go when I couldn’t work no more. But they found this job for me and they let me the ’ouse cheap. Of course it was Mr. Berlyn as ’ad the final say, but I know as Mr. Pyke spoke for me. It wasn’t everyone as would ’ave done that, now was it, sir?” Consideration on the part of an employer was not, French knew, to be taken as a matter of course, though it was vastly more common than the unions would have the public believe. But gratitude on the part of an employee was not so frequent, though it was by no means unique. Its exhibition, however, in the present instance confirmed French in the course he was taking. “Now, Gurney, do you know who I am?” he went on. “I’m an inspector from Scotland Yard and I’m down here to try to solve these two mysteries. Because, Gurney, do you know what I think? I think that on that night the body of one of these two gentlemen was taken to the works and put into the crate.” Gurney started and paled. “Lord save us!” he muttered. “But wot about the accident?”