"What's the name of this place?" I asked abruptly. "Mootley," replied Giles, now less suspicious and more human. "It ain't a very large village, but we've more cottages than these here scattered along the road up yonder," and he jerked his thumb to the left where a lane ran from the high-road towards a woodland. "It's too dark to see anything," I said idly, "but to-morrow you can show me round. I daresay I shall have to pass the night at your house, Mr. Giles, unless you think that I may rise in the night to kill you. By the way," I added with a bantering air, "you don't hold my arm. Aren't you afraid I'll bolt?" "No, sir," said the man, now perfectly polite. "I see that I have made a mistake. I know your name, if you're the Mr. Vance who writes plays." "I am; but that is odd knowledge for a villager in these out-of-the-way parts to possess." "Oh, I haven't lived at Mootley all my life, sir, although I was born here forty years ago. I went to London, and stopped in Southwark for years. I'd a greengrocer's shop there, and did fairly well. But London didn't suit my wife's health, sir, so I sold up some time back, and bought a cottage and an acre of land here with my savings. I know your name, sir, because I've seen one or two plays of yours at The Elephant and Castle Theatre. And very good plays they were, sir, too." "Humph! It seems to me, Mr. Giles, that I am now the wrongly suspected hero of a much more mysterious and lurid melodrama than any I have written." "It _is_ strange," admitted Giles, with a side glance. I saw the glance by the light which gleamed from a cottage window. "My murdering Mrs. Caldershaw?" I inquired coolly. "We don't know yet that she has been murdered," he replied quickly. "Then my stealing that glass eye of hers?" "No, sir. But your being locked up in the dark with the corpse." "She wasn't a corpse when I entered, Mr. Giles. Her moans attracted me into the room. While I was seeing by match-light what was the matter, someone locked the door, and bolted with my motor." "The lady I saw, sir." "No doubt, since I did not bring a lady with me." "I wonder if she got the eye," muttered Giles half to himself. "She must have got something that wasn't hers, else she would not have made use of my car to escape." "Then she must have taken the eye," Giles muttered again. "What the deuce are you talking about? Why should she steal a glass eye?" "That's what I'd like to know, sir. It's an odd thing to steal. And I never knew that Mrs. Caldershaw's left eye was a glass one, though she told Mrs. Faith about it. Well, it's gone----" "And the lady who stole my motor car took it. At least it seems so. But I tell you what, Mr. Giles, I'm too hungry to discuss the matter just now. The whole business is a mystery to me, and Destiny has dragged me into it in a most unpleasant way." Giles nodded. "It's easy seen you're innocent, sir," he said with an air of relief. "You wouldn't talk so, if you weren't."