"Thought the spooks had got me!" He grinned appreciatively. "No, sir! I just pulled up the road a bit--didn't know which way you'd gone. I guess they weren't huntin' company tonight." He laughed. "Mighty thick these woods are. I don't know this part of the country much. Do you get any big animals, round about?" "Nothing bigger than a badger," I said. "Why?" "There was something crossed my path, coming up the hill there. It might have been a dog, now I think of it, but it didn't look like no dog I've ever seen. Rather high in the hindquarters, and grayish ... I on'y saw the back of it. It slunk off in the bushes as I come up." "There aren't any very big dogs that I know," I said, "except Mr. Lessing's setter, and that's generally chained up at night." "It weren't no setter," said Jackson. "Weren't the build of a setter. And it weren't no badger, for I've seen 'em. Low-running, brownish beasts they are.... Is this the house, sir?" We drew up outside the bungalow, and I jumped down to join the others, waiting on the porch. "It wasn't anything _like_ a dog, now I think of it," said Jackson. XVIII LENNOX'S STORY Lennox's face, when the car had deposited us once more at our door, expressed utter chagrin and annoyance. He flung himself down in the surgery arm-chair and lit a cigar. "That's what comes of not acting on the minute," he said. "I had my hand on the man last night. I tell you, Haverill, you can't drive plain facts into people's heads. There's formality and formality, and the end is your man gets a clear twelve hours to lay his plans and the game's up." "Bad luck," I rejoined. He sat staring moodily down at the carpet. "While I think of it," I remembered, "I've got some property of yours. You might as well have it back." I pulled out the envelope he had left for me that morning. Lennox took it without a glance and thrust it into his pocket. "Considering that I didn't have the opportunity to open it," I remarked, "I think you might let me into the story now." He pulled out his watch. "Well, I don't know but what sleep's out of the question, anyway, tonight. Get the whisky out, Haverill, there's a good chap, and we'll go into it." "One moment," I said as I unlocked the cupboard. "Have you any objection if I fetch Herrick down?" "Not in the least." I roused Herrick accordingly, and he bundled sleepily into a dressing-gown and joined us below, where his sleepiness rapidly vanished in the few moments that it took to grasp the new turn of events, and the part that Lennox himself had played in last night's happenings. Put briefly, this was the story as Lennox put it to us, gathered round the surgery table in the chilly half-hour that precedes dawn.