"Can't make Axton out . . . Most curious conversation--inquisitive on my part, evasive on his . . . He told me two lies . . . In fact, during the whole conversation he seemed to be on his guard. . . . I don't like the look of things . . . I have no right to pry into Axton's affairs, but I can't understand his denials--denials which I could tell from his manner were false . . . Queer thing about Ironfields . . . The dead man came from Ironfields . . . Miss Varlins lives at Ironfields . . . Qy. Can there be any connection between the deceased and Miss Varlins? . . . Impossible, and yet it's very strange . . . I don't like that open door either . . . That is extraordinary . . . Then the letter written by the deceased . . . I asked at the post office here about it . . . They could tell me nothing . . . I wonder to whom that letter was sent? . . . I think it's the key to the whole affair . . . Can Roger Axton be keeping anything from me? . . . Did he know the dead man? . . . I am afraid to answer these questions . . . Well, I'll go down to Ironfields and find out all about the dead man . . . Perhaps my inquiries will lead me to Miss Varlins . . . But no, there can be no connection, and yet I doubt Roger . . . I mistrust him . . . I don't like his manner . . . his evasive replies . . . And then he's connected with Miss Varlins--she is connected with Ironfields . . . That is connected with the deceased . . . All links in a chain . . . Most extraordinary. "_Mem_.--To go at once to Ironfields." Chapter 4 The Evidence of the Chemist's Assistant Ironfields is not a pretty place; not even its warmest admirer could say it was pretty, but then its warmest admirer would not want to say anything of the kind. Well drained, well laid out, well lighted, it could--according to the minds of its inhabitants--easily dispense with such mere prettiness or picturesqueness as crooked-streeted, gable-mansioned towns, dating from the Middle Ages, could boast of. Poor things, those sleepy cathedral towns, beautified by the hand of Time--poor things indeed compared with vast Ironfields, the outcome of a manufacturing century and a utilitarian race! Ironfields with its lines of ugly model houses, its broad, treeless streets, its muddy river flowing under a hideous railway bridge, its mighty foundries with their tall chimneys that belched forth smoke in the daytime, and fire at night, and its ceaseless clamour that roared up to the smoke-hidden sky six days in the week.