“Some story that, Inspector,” they cried. “Tell us more and we’ll give you a good write up.” But French smilingly shook his head. “Sorry it’s all I’m at liberty to give away,” he declared. “Come now, gentlemen, I haven’t done so badly for you. Plenty of men in my position wouldn’t have told you anything.” “But do you not think,” said one, the least vociferous of the four, “that your theory may have been right after all? Is it not possible that the stuff was hidden in the coffin as you suggested, but was dug up and removed by the gang before you made your exhumation?” “I thought of that,” French declared brazenly, “and you may be right, though there were no signs of it. However, that is one of the things to be gone into.” When French had breakfasted he went to see the undertaker who had conducted Giles’ funeral, and there he received some information which still more firmly established the theory he had evolved. “The whole arrangements,” explained Mr. Simkins, the proprietor, in the course of the conversation, “were carried out to Mr. Roper’s orders. Mr. Roper said that Mr. Giles had had an idea he mightn’t get over the attack, and he had handed him the money for his funeral, asking him to see to it as he had no relative to do it. There were twelve pounds over when the ground was bought, and Mr. Roper handed the money to me and told me to do the best I could with it. He said he thought the best plan would be to get the body coffined that afternoon—it was a Wednesday—and have the funeral on the Friday. He said the doctor thought the coffining should be done as soon as possible, and while the day of the interment didn’t really matter, Friday would suit as well as any. That was the reason he gave for the arrangement, for you know, sir, in inexpensive funerals at such a distance, we generally do the coffining just before the funeral and so make the one journey do. But that was the way it was done.” “I understand,” French continued. “Mr. Giles died on the Tuesday, the coffining was done on the Wednesday, and the funeral took place on the Friday. That right?” “That’s right, sir.” It seemed to French that the undertaker’s statement demonstrated the sole remaining steps of Roper’s plan so completely that every detail of that hideous night now stood revealed in all its ghastliness. He had not only murdered Markham Giles, but he had arranged that the body should lie coffined in the lonely house on the night of the major tragedy. On that night he and probably Mrs. Roper must have opened the coffin, taken out the remains, replaced them with the proper weight of earth, and once more screwed down the lid. A small handcart such as French had noticed in the unburnt outhouse at Starvel would serve to convey the remains to the Hollow, where they were to be used in such a terrible way to bolster up the deception.