"No, I rather disagree," said Wydcombe. "If there had been a plot to kill him they wouldn't have risked firing a revolver, as it would attract too much attention. No, depend upon it that the affair was not a premeditated one. Did you notice his boots? Although dusty and badly worn they were evidently by a good maker. Besides, I felt his hand. It was as soft as a woman's." "But you surely don't believe that he was a gentleman, do you?" asked Winsloe. "To me the fellow was more like a tramp." "I hardly know what to think, Ellice," was his lordship's reply as he lit a cigarette. "It's a mystery, and that's all one can say. Whoever killed him was a confoundedly good shot." "You don't think it was suicide?" Winsloe asked slowly, looking the speaker straight in the face. "Suicide! Of course not. Why don't you hear? They haven't found a revolver." And with such remarks as these we went back to the house for lunch. When we had all assembled at table, Eric and Lady Wydcombe alone being absent, old Lady Scarcliff exclaimed suddenly,-- "Tibbie has broken out again. She took Mason and went off in the car early this morning without telling anyone where she was going. Did anybody hear the car go off?" she inquired, looking around the table. But all expressed surprise at Tibbie's absence, and of course nobody had heard her departure. Where had she gone, and why, we all asked. Whereupon her ladyship merely replied,-- "I'm sure I can't tell you anything. Simmons brought me a scribbled note at nine o'clock this morning, saying that she had found it in her room. It was from Tibbie to say that as she couldn't sleep she had got up and gone out with Mason. `Perhaps I shall be back to-morrow,' she says, `but if I am not, please don't worry after me. I shall be all right and will write.'" "Gone to see Aunt Clara down at Hove, perhaps," remarked Jack. "She said something about running down there a few days ago." "But it isn't proper for a young girl tearing about the country by herself and driving her own car," protested the old lady. "She knows that I most strongly disapprove of it." "And therefore does it all the more," laughed the man who had identified the victim in Charlton Wood. "Tibbie is really quite incorrigible." "Quite, Mr Winsloe," declared her ladyship. "My only fear is that one day something terrible may happen to her. The driving of a big car is, I always say, not a proper occupation for a girl. She'll come to grief some day--depend upon it!" Ellice looked straight at the old lady, without uttering any word of reply. What did he know, I wondered? Was he, too, aware of her secret? But the others were chattering gaily, and next moment he turned from me and joined in their merry gossip. That afternoon I remained at home, but he drove out with two ladies of the party to make a call on some people about five miles away. After he had gone Eric returned, and I told him all that I had seen, and of my suspicions.