When I got inside the cottage, a clean, tidy woman came bustling through from the back room, wiping her hands on her apron as she came. I was a little at a loss how to begin till I noticed some bottles of lemonade in a case behind the little counter, and asked to be served with two. Chairs were handed us, and we decanted the lemonade in comfort, talking about the weather and roads as we did so, and then I indifferently turned the conversation to the strange customers that the good woman would be in the habit of noticing on the road. “I suppose you never notice any men coming to see Mr Turner up the way there—a coarse, red-haired man, for instance, in a big coachman’s coat, and having a slight cast in his eyes?” “Mr Turner’s no ane to hae mony folk coming aboot his hoose—he’s owre greedy for that,” was the answer, “but I think I did see a man like that a day or twa syne—no gaun to Mr Turner’s, but coming the other road. He cam’ in here and bocht a half-ounce o’ tobacco and a pipe.” “Going in towards Edinburgh, you mean?” “No that either, for he asked the nearest road to the railway station.” “He couldn’t be going to Edinburgh, then, for the station is two miles farther on, and he would have been nearly as quick to have walked. Have you any idea if he had been at Mr Turner’s?” “No me; I never clapped een on the man afore.” “Was he carrying anything?—a fiddle case, for instance?” “No, no—naething but a deal box, tied roond wi’ a string. It wasna sae big as a fiddle case. He laid it doon on the counter while he filled his pipe. I think there was a ticket on it—put on wi’ iron tacks—and a name on the ticket.” “What name?” “I never lookit. Maybe it wasna a name. I never like to be impident, and didna look very close.” I questioned her closely on the man’s appearance, and found that it tallied very closely with that of the sham coachman. Yet I was anything but hopeful of the result. The description might have suited fifty innocent men who might pass her little shop in the course of a forenoon. Still I resolved to follow the clue a little further, and directed the cabman to turn his horse off at the first bye-road, and make for a railway station two miles further on. It was quite a small place, a branch from the main line, and to my satisfaction I found the booking clerk who had been on duty on the day named by the woman. This lad recollected the red-haired man perfectly, but when I said, “Where did he book for?” he looked at me with a puzzled expression, then thought a moment, and said— “_Did_ he book for any place?” It was now my turn to look puzzled. “I don’t know—I suppose he did when he walked two miles to get to the station,” I said at last. “Why else would he come here?” “He brought a parcel,” said the lad, turning to one of his ledgers and flapping over the leaves. “He booked _it_, I know, but I don’t think he took out a ticket or waited for the train.” “What kind of a parcel?”