“Of course not. I’ll give you a note to MacGregor. These country bumpkins become jealous easily.” “Thank you. I think there’s only one other thing I should like to ask you, and that’s about Roper. Do you know anything of him?” “I don’t, but he might have lived at Kintilloch all his life for all that. I don’t know the local people very well. The sergeant will help you there. He is a useful man for his job—a shrewd gossip. There’s not much happens in his district that he doesn’t know about.” A short run in a local train brought French to Kintilloch and he was not long in finding the local police station and introducing himself to Sergeant MacGregor. That worthy at first displayed a canny reserve, but on seeing his superintendent’s note became loquacious and informative. With the exception of two pieces of information, he had little to tell of which French was not already aware. Those two items, however, were important. The first was that he had known John Roper well. Roper had been for six years an attendant at the Ransome Institute. He had been, the sergeant believed, directly under Dr. Philpot. At all events he and the doctor knew each other intimately. As to the man’s character; MacGregor knew nothing against him, but he had not liked him, nor indeed had many other people. Roper was an able man, clever and efficient, but he had a sneering, satirical manner and was unable to refrain from making caustic remarks which hurt people’s feelings and made him enemies. He left his job and the town some three or four years after Dr. Philpot as a result of trouble at the Institute, and so far as the sergeant could tell, no one was very sorry to see the last of him. The sergeant had supposed he had gone to Brazil, as he had applied for a passport for that country. He had informed the sergeant that he had a brother in Santos and was going out to him. The second piece of news was that Flora Macfarlane, the Philpots’ maid, had been married a month or so after Mrs. Philpot’s death, and to no less a person than John Roper. The girl who had all but witnessed her mistress’ tragic death had herself five years later been a victim in that still more terrible tragedy at the old house in Starvel Hollow.