“Is Miss Grison staying here then?” asked Alan, wondering if it would be worth while to look her up. “At Mrs. Millington’s, the dressmaker, my dear. She and Louisa were close friends twenty years and more ago.” “That was when Grison was secretary to Mr. Sorley.” “Yes,” chimed in the vicar. “But who told you about that, my boy?” “Miss Grison spoke about it at the inquest and also to Dick and Inspector Moon, father. Then I met Mr. Sorley on my way here and he told me that he had employed the man, but had to get rid of him for drink, and——” “I don’t think that is true,” interrupted Mrs. Fuller with some indignation in her usually gentle voice. “Poor Baldwin—we called him so when he was a young man—did not drink to excess, although he certainly took more than was good for him at times.” “Then why was he discharged?” “I cannot say, Alan, nor can anyone else. Louisa knows, but she would never tell me. But Mr. Sorley was much to blame in throwing Baldwin on the world without a character, since he was too weak to stand by himself. Louisa did what she could, but he fell from bad to worse until—alas! alas! Tell me, Alan, has anything been discovered as to who killed him?” “Not yet, mother. You have read the papers.” “Oh yes. Louisa sent all the reports down to your father and to me, knowing that we took a deep interest in Baldwin. Don’t you remember him, Alan? You were a little boy of six or seven then.” Alan shook his head. “I have a faint recollection only, mother. A little man, wasn’t he, with fair hair and blue eyes? But there, I may have got that impression from Dick’s description. He saw the corpse.” “Don’t talk about such things, Alan,” said the vicar hastily. “It worries your mother: she is very impressionable. Let us be thankful that the poor creature has been brought back to lie in our quiet churchyard. As to the person who murdered him, he will suffer for his sin in God’s good time.” “I doubt if the truth will ever be discovered,” said Alan with a shrug. “By the way, father, do you remember that peacock of jewels which was the fetish or luck of the Inderwicks?” Not knowing what connection there was between the murder of Grison and the ornament in question, the vicar thought that the apparently irrelevant inquiry was made by his son in obedience to his request that the crime should not be discussed in the presence of Mrs. Fuller. “Everyone in the village, if not in the county, knows about the peacock,” he said with an approving smile, “but as to its bringing luck, I do not believe in such superstitions, my boy.” “Perhaps not,” said his wife quietly, “but you must confess, John, that since what the Inderwicks call their luck has been missing nothing has gone well with them—that is with Marie, who alone represents the family.” “Nonsense, my dear. Marie is young, healthy, pretty, and happy enough in her own way, as Sorley is kindness itself to her. There’s no bad luck haunting the girl so far as I can see.”