envy you your nerve,” said Jane.
“Hush,” said Dimble again.
They walked slowly and quietly up to the edge and stopped. Below them a big fire of wood was burning at the bottom of a little dingle. There were bushes all about, whose changing shadows, as the flames rose and fell, made it difficult to see clearly. Beyond the fire there seemed to be some rude kind of tent made out of sacking, and Denniston thought he saw an upturned cart. In the foreground, between them and the fire, there was certainly a kettle.
“Is there anyone here?” whispered Dimble to Denniston.
“I don’t know. Wait a few seconds.”
“Look!” said Jane suddenly. “There! When the flame blew aside.”
“What?” said Dimble.
“Didn’t you see him?”
“I saw nothing.”
“I thought I saw a man,” said Denniston.
“I saw an ordinary tramp,” said Dimble. “I mean a man in modern clothes.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“We must go down,” said Dimble.
“Can one get down?” said Denniston.
“Not this side,” said Dimble. “It looks as if a sort of path came into it over there to the right. We must go along the edge till we find the way down.”
They had all been talking in low voices and the crackling of the fire was now the loudest sound, for the rain seemed to be stopping. Cautiously, like troops who fear the eye of the enemy, they began to skirt the lip of the hollow, stealing from tree to tree.
“Stop!” whispered Jane suddenly.
“What is it?”
“There’s something moving.”
“Where?”
“In there. Quite close.”
“I heard nothing.”
“There’s nothing now.”
“Let’s go on.”
“Do you still think there’s something, Jane?”
“It’s quiet now. There was something.”
They made a few paces more.
“’St!” said Denniston. “Jane’s right. There is something.”
“Shall I speak?” said Dimble.
“Wait a moment,” said Denniston. “It’s just there. Look!—damn it, it’s only an old donkey!”
“That’s what I said,” said Dimble. “The man’s a gypsy; a tinker or something. This is his donkey. Still, we must go down.”
They proceeded. In a few moments they found themselves descending a rutted grassy path which wound about till the whole hollow opened before them; and now the fire was no longer between them and the tent. “There he is,” said Jane.
“Can you see him?” said Dimble. “I haven’t got your eyes.”
“I can see him all right,” said Denniston. “It is a tramp. Can’t you see him Dimble? An old man with a ragged beard in what looks like the remains of a British warm and a pair of black trousers. Don’t you see his left foot, stuck out, and the toe a bit up in the air?”
“That?” said Dimble. “I thought that was a log. But you’ve better eyes than I have. Did you really see a man, Arthur?”
“Well, I thought I did, sir. But I’m not certain now. I think my eyes are getting tired. He’s sitting very still. If it is a man, he’s asleep.”
“Or dead,” said Jane with a sudden shudder.
“Well,” said Dimble, “we must go down.”
And in less than a minute all three walked down into the dingle and past the fire. And there was the tent, and a few miserable attempts at bedding inside it, and a tin plate, and some matches on the ground, and the dottle of a pipe, but they could see no man.
II
“What I can’t understand, Wither,” said Fairy Hardcastle, “is why you don’t let me try my hand on the young pup. All these ideas of yours are so half-hearted—keeping him on his toes about the murder, arresting him, leaving him all night in the cells to think it over. Why do you keep messing about with things that may work or may not?—when twenty minutes of my treatment would turn his mind inside out. I know the type.”
Miss Hardcastle was talking, at about ten o’clock that same wet night, to the Deputy Director in his study. There was a third person present—Professor Frost.
“I assure you, Miss Hardcastle,” said Wither, fixing his eyes not on her but on Frost’s forehead, “you need not doubt that your views on this, or any other matter, will always receive the fullest consideration. But if I may say so, this is one of those cases where—ah—any grave degree of coercive examination might defeat its own end.”
“Why?” said the Fairy sulkily.
“You must excuse me,” said Wither, “for reminding you—not, of course, that I assume you are neglecting the point, but simply on methodological grounds—it is so important to make everything clear—that we need the woman—I mean, that it would be of the greatest value to welcome Mrs. Studdock among us—chiefly on account of the remarkable psychical faculty she is said to possess. In using the word Psychical, I am not, you understand, committing myself to any particular theory.”
“You mean these dreams?”
“It is very doubtful,” said Wither, “what effect it might have on her if she were brought here under compulsion and then found her husband—ah—in the markedly, though no doubt temporarily, abnormal condition which we should have to anticipate as a result of your scientific methods of examination. One would run the risk of a profound emotional disturbance on her part. The faculty itself might disappear; at least for a long time.”
“We have not yet had Major Hardcastle’s report,” said Professor Frost quietly.
“No good,” said the Fairy. “He was shadowed into Northumberland. Only three possible people left the College after him—Lancaster, Lyly, and Dimble. I put them in that order of probability. Lancaster is a Christian, and a very influential man. He’s in the Lower House of Convocation. He had a lot to do with the Repton Conference. He’s mixed up with several big clerical families. And he’s written a lot of books. He has a real stake in their side. Lyly is rather the same type, but less of an organiser. As you will remember, he did a great deal of harm on that
