The next morning was fine and bright, with an invigorating autumn nip in the air. The kind of day for a good walk, thought French, as after breakfast he stood in the hotel coffee room, looking out on the placid life of the little town, exemplified at the moment in the dawdling passage of three tiny children with school satchels over their shoulders. He liked the place. He had taken a fancy to it on that first evening of his arrival, and what he had seen of it since had only confirmed his first impression. The surroundings also seemed attractive, and he hoped to explore them more fully before he left. As he stood gazing into the main street it occurred to him that for his explorations no time more propitious than the present was likely to offer. For the moment he was at a dead lock in his case. After he had finished writing out the doctor’s statement on the previous evening he had thought over the affair and he had not seen his way clear. What he required was a detailed study of the whole position in the hope of lighting on some further clue or line of research. And what better opportunity for such contemplation could there be than during a long tramp through lonely country? Surely for once duty and inclination coincided? Whether this latter was strictly true or not, ten minutes later saw him starting out with a stick in his hand and a packet of sandwiches in his pocket. He turned in the Starvel direction, and climbing up the side of the valley, came out on the wide expanse of the moor. Ahead of him it lay, stretching away in irregular undulating waves into the gray-blue distance, with here and there a rounded hill rising above the general level. For miles he could see the ribbon of the road showing white against the browns and greens of the grass where it wound up over shoulders and ridges and mounted the far sides of hollows. Extraordinarily deserted was the country side, a solitude quite astonishing in so densely populated a land as this of England. For a time French tramped on, his mind occupied with his surroundings, but gradually it turned back to his case and he began reckoning up his progress, and considering how he could best attack what still remained to be done. And the more he thought of it, the less rosy the outlook seemed. Ruefully he had to admit that in point of fact he was practically no further on than when he started. He had done a good deal of work, no doubt, but unfortunately it had brought him only a negative result. His researches into the movements of Whymper and Philpot had been unavoidable, but these had proved side lines and he did not believe that either would help him with the main issue.