Beatrice might have supplied a clue; but for reasons connected with the Paslow family she held her tongue, and feigned ignorance when the rural police came on the scene, which they did very speedily, owing to the zeal of Mrs. Snow. The sergeant of the district questioned and cross-questioned Miss Hedge, with very little success. She told him that, on the previous evening, she had gone for a walk in the woods round The Camp, but did not mention with what object. There, as she stated very truly, she had been caught in the storm, and at some unknown time had stumbled home wet and weary, and so tired that she had at once slipped into bed. The note from her stepfather was produced, and confiscated by the sergeant; the details of Mrs. Snow's curiosity leading to a discovery of a crime, were given; and then Beatrice professed that she could tell no more. The bucolic constable believed her readily enough, and informed his Inspector who came that Miss Hedge had told the truth and nothing but the truth. This might have been so, but she certainly had not told the whole truth, else might the sergeant have added to the note left by the dead man, a certain gentleman's handkerchief, marked with three initials--"V.R.P." This piece of evidence Beatrice had picked up so near the body, that a corner of the handkerchief was soaked in the life-blood of the miser. Her quick eye had seen it almost the moment she had entered the dungeon at Durban's heels, and when falling on her knees by the dead she had mechanically picked it up, without lynx-eyed Mrs. Snow seeing the action. Durban would only allow the women to remain for two minutes in that place of death. Then he drove them out, and insisted that Beatrice should retire to her parlour. She did so while he reclosed the door of the counting-house, and while Mrs. Snow, almost too excited to speak, ran for the nearest constable, who in his turn summoned his sergeant. Alone in the parlour, Beatrice, still mechanically grasping the handkerchief, suddenly remembered how she had found it, and at once examined the corners. It was with a gasp of terror that she realised to whom it belonged. "V.R.P." could only stand for Vivian Robert Paslow, and he--as she knew only too well--was the enemy of the deceased. Could it be that Vivian had killed the miser to settle the question of marriage, and secure his threatened property from getting into the cruel clutches of his victim? In that first moment of horror Beatrice was inclined to think so. Then, with a revulsion of feeling, she recoiled with horror from so base an idea. The man she loved was not a midnight assassin: however much he may have hated Alpenny, he certainly would not have put the old man to death in so barbarous a fashion. Finally, he had been with her under the Witches' Oak last night, and could not possibly be guilty.