"From the papers this morning it appears that your friend has been about this neighbourhood a good deal of late. For what reason nobody knows. He's been living sometimes at the Royal at Norwich and the King's Head at Beccles for the past month or so, they say." "He told me so himself. He promised to come over to me at the air-station at Yarmouth to-morrow and lunch with me, poor fellow." "I wonder what really happened?" "Ah, I wonder!" remarked the slim, well-set-up, flying officer. "A mere tramp doesn't kill a fellow of Dick Harborne's hard stamp in order to rob him of his cycle." "No. There's something much more behind the tragedy, without a doubt," declared the local Justice of the Peace. "Let's hope something will come out at the inquest. Personally, I'm inclined to think that it's an act of revenge. Most probably a woman is at the bottom of it." Barclay shook his head. He did not incline to that opinion. "I wonder with what motive he cycled so constantly over to this neighbourhood from Norwich or Beccles?" exclaimed Goring. "What could have been the attraction? There must have been one, for this is an out-of-the-world place." "Your theory is a woman. Mine isn't," declared the lieutenant, bluntly, offering his friend a cigarette and lighting one himself. "No, depend upon it, poor old Dick was a man of mystery. Many strange rumours were afloat concerning him. Yet, after all, he was a real fine fellow, and as smart an officer as ever trod a quarter-deck. He was a splendid linguist, and had fine prospects, for he has an uncle an admiral on the National Defence Committee. Yet he chucked it all and became a cosmopolitan wanderer, and--if there be any truth in the gossip I've heard--an adventurer." "An outsider--eh?" "Well--no, not exactly. Dick Harborne was a gentleman, therefore he could never have been an outsider," replied the naval officer quickly. "By adventurer I mean that he led a strange, unconventional life. He was met by men who knew him in all sorts of out-of-the-world corners of Europe, where he spent the greater part of his time idling at _cafes_ and in a section of society which was not altogether reputable." "And you say he was not an adventurer?" remarked the staid British landowner--one of a class perhaps the most conservative and narrow-minded in all the world. "My dear fellow, travel broadens a man's mind," exclaimed the naval officer. "A man may be a cosmopolitan without being an adventurer. Dick Harborne, though there were so many sinister whispers concerning him, was a gentleman--a shrewd, deep-thinking, patriotic Englishman. And his death is a mystery--one which I intend to solve. I've come over here again to-day to find out what I can."