“What I mean is, it would be very hard for anybody to see Brotherhood fall out of the train unless he was travelling in the same coach: the other coaches would be out of view (unless a man were leaning right out of the window), simply owing to the curve—and of course a fog would make the job all the easier.” “By Jove, that’s true. I must say, I stick to my murder theory, whatever the jury make of it. In fact, I hope they will bring in suicide, because then the police won’t be fussing round all over the place. It looks to me like a murder, and a carefully planned one.” “I’d just like to try your stone-throwing trick once more. Look here, I’ll lean over the edge and watch it fall. Only we shall want a bigger stone, if you can find one.” “All right. Only they’re all little ones between the sleepers. I’ll look along the bank a bit. I say, what the devil’s this?” It was a sight that on most days would have given little surprise to the pair; a common enough sight, indeed, down in the valley, but up here a portent. Caught in a clump of grass, some twenty yards down the line in the Paston Oatvile direction, was a golf-ball. “That beats everything,” declared Gordon. “I don’t believe Carmichael on his worst day could slice a ball a hundred feet up in the air and lodge it in that clump.” Reeves was examining the trove intently. “I don’t like this a bit,” he said. “This is practically a new ball, not the sort of ball a man would throw away casually as he walked down the line. A Buffalo, I see—dash it all, there are at least a dozen of us use those. Who’ll tell us whether Brotherhood used them?” “I say, steady on! You’ve got this murder business on the brain. How can you tell the ball hasn’t been there weeks and weeks?” “Very simply, because it happens to have snapped the stalk of this flower—scabious, don’t they call ’em—which isn’t dead yet. The ball was right on top when I found it. I’m hanged if that ball fell there more than twenty-four hours ago.” “I say, we ought to be getting back to Oatvile if we’re going to catch that train,” said Gordon. “It’s half-past four already, and we’ve got to take to the path before we come in sight of the signal-box. The signalman doesn’t really mind, but he has to pretend to.” Gordon was one of those men who are always too early for trains. As a matter of fact they got into Paston Oatvile station before the 3.47 from London was signalled. The 4.50 from Paston Oatvile had to connect with it for the sake of passengers going on to Paston Whitchurch or Binver, and was still wandering up and down in a siding, flirting with a couple of milk-vans and apparently enjoying itself. The platform was nearly bare of passengers, a fact on which Reeves artfully commented to an apathetic porter. “Not many travelling? You wait till the London train comes in, sir; there’s always plenty in that as change here.” “I suppose it’s the first train people can get away from business by, eh?”