I can't say that my drive was over-pleasant, as the rain came on, just after I left Murchester and it poured steadily throughout the day. Then as the wheels would not bite in particularly soaked and slippery places, the car skidded considerably; also the gear jammed on two occasions, and once I ran short of petrol. Never was there such a series of accidents, and my temper was none of the best when I struck Tarhaven. Here I halted for luncheon, and went to the post-office to see if any letters awaited me. I found only one from my agent, but as that contained two weeks' fees for my new melodrama it proved to be most acceptable. A visit to the haberdasher's took up some of my time, and it was late in the afternoon when I turned the Rippler in the direction of Burwain. However, the distance from Tarhaven was but a short one, and I soon slowed down before the one hotel of the village. I call it an hotel, but it was really a tumbledown inn, quaint, old-fashioned, and comfortable, with a robin red-breast for its sign. Burwain is an isolated little place, lying low in a hollow depression of the land, some distance from the sea. On its outskirts the road ran through levels of stunted shrubs not big enough to be called trees, and there were also tall hedges, which muffled the village as though it were wrapped in cotton-wool. By reason of this the place is stuffy, and the air seems to be twice breathed. The streets stretch to the four quarters in the form of a crooked cross, and there was a tolerably wide green in the centre, which is faced by the Robin Redbreast Inn. I pulled up, and jumped out to meet the landlady in the passage and receive a great surprise. "Cuckoo!" I said, halting in much astonishment. "Well, I'm blest." "Mrs. Gilfin now, Master Cyrus," said the old lady, as amazed as I was. "Well, well to think that you of all gentlemen should come here." "It's fate," said I, for I knew that from Mrs. Gilfin, if anyone, I could obtain all necessary news, unless she had changed her gossiping habits, which I did not think at all likely. Still exclaiming at our unexpected meeting, Mrs. Gilfin led the way to a small sitting-room, and we faced one another to talk over the past. Mrs. Gilfin had been my mother's cook when I was a schoolboy, and then we had been the greatest of friends. As a child I had always called her Cuckoo, from some dim association with her employment, and many a time had I been indebted to her for tit-bits. When the home was broken up she had vanished into the unknown, but now reappeared in the character of a married woman and the landlady, of this old-world inn. She was a fat little woman, with a pudding-face, who wore spectacles, behind which sharp little pig's eyes twinkled knowingly. In old days she had always been a great talker, and did not seemed to have changed in this respect: a cause of rejoicing to me, since I hoped to learn all I could about Miss Monk and her dead nurse.