"It is very strange," he said, half aloud and half to himself. "Were there three of them here last night, or were there only two, and was Francbois not one of them? Had I two enemies besides him, and still have two with him since Sparmann is gone? It is vastly strange." After which he turned to Karl, and said: "You have just found this thing. Therefore it was not there last night nor yesterday morning?" "Ah," the old man replied, "I cannot tell. Yesterday I used not the path at all, having gone first to the Jouffrouw at Mynheer Van Ryk's in the morning; and, last night, I was busy with _him_," nodding his head towards where the corpse by the stables had been, "after dark." "What have you done with him?" "He is gone," Karl said vaguely. "Gone. No matter where. He will not come back to--to--the Weiss Haus or Liége." By which remark Bevill was led to suppose that the old man had cast Sparmann's body into the river. "Therefore," the latter said, "we have no knowledge of whether that hat was left behind by one who was here during the storm of the night before, or last night. Yet," turning the thing over in his hands, "surely it must have been the first night. See, it has recently been soaked by rain, the lining is still damp, and last night there was no rain whatever." "It may be," Karl replied, apparently much astonished at this clear reasoning. "It may be. Therefore, you had three visitors on that night." "I cannot say. I have but proof of two. The wearers of the two hats at least were here. Yet they may well have been the only visitors; in solemn truth there may not have been three. Though strange it is that, if there were but two, both should have parted with their hats. One must have lost his in the encounter in which he received his death-wound, the other in fleeing away." For, now, Bevill had grave doubts as to whether Francbois had been at the Weiss Haus at all on the night before the one now past. Still, if it were not Francbois who had mortally wounded Sparmann--while almost of a certainty supposing Sparmann to be another person, namely, himself--who was it? Who was the other enemy he possessed? He knew neither of personal enemy nor spy tracking him, nor of French soldier or official likely to do so. All the same, there was, there must be, a third enemy, even though Francbois had not been of the number that night, since it was almost certain that neither of those hats would have been worn by him--even as a disguise. There must be two others beside him while Sparmann was alive!