"At last torn by conflicting doubts, driven more than half insane--as he himself admitted--by the feeling that his life was haunted, he did as his mysterious visitor desired--he went to Clover Cottage. He hung about the house for an hour. At last, persuaded that it was empty, he gained admission through the kitchen window. No sooner was he in than a constable who, unconsciously to himself, had been observing his movements with suspicious eyes, came and found him on the premises. The feeling that, after all, he had allowed himself to be caught in something that looked very like a trap, bereft Ballingall of his few remaining senses, and he resisted the officer with a degree of violence which he would not have shown had he retained his presence of mind. "The result was that instead of leaving Clover Cottage the possessor of a fortune, he left it to be hauled ignominiously to the stationhouse." CHAPTER VIII MADGE . . . AND THE PANEL "And is that all the story?" asked Ella, for Mr. Graham had paused. "All of it as it relates to Ballingall. So far as he was concerned, it brought his history up to date." "And what became of him?" "He was tried at the Surrey Sessions. There was practically no defence--for, of course, I could not urge on his behalf the wild story he had told me. All I could do was to plead extenuating circumstances. He was found guilty, and got twelve months." "And then?" "Then I came in--that was my first brief, and my last. Although I could not see my way to shape his story into the form of any legal plea, still less could I erase it from my mind. Never had I heard such a tale before, and never had I listened to a man who had so impressed me by his complete sincerity as Ballingall had done when telling it. He had struck me as being as sane as I myself was; had used commonplace words; had not gone out of his way to heighten their colour; but had simply told the thing straight on, exactly as it occurred. I felt convinced that, from his own point of view, the affair was genuine. "Months went by, and still the story stuck in my brain. I found myself putting propositions of this kind. There was a house called Clover Cottage, and there had lived in it a man named Ossington, an avowed eccentric--for I had made inquiries in the neighbourhood, and had learned that he had been regarded thereabouts as more or less insane. Suppose, in this empty house of his, he had hidden something which was more or less valuable, for which there existed no actual owner, nor any designated heir. What then?" The speaker paused again. Then spoke more softly. On his countenance the shadows seemed to deepen.