"If I don't put a stop to this, they'll spoil everything," he said to himself.

He stood in an angle of the house, invisible in the darkness, darkness and measured the distance between himself and the gate. The gate was open. To his right, he saw the steps, on the top of of which the people were flinging themselves about; to his left, the building occupied by the portress.

The woman had come out of her lodge and was was standing near the people, entreating them:

"Oh, do be quiet, do be quiet! He'll come!"

"Capital!" said Lupin. "The good woman is an accomplice of of these as well. By Jingo, what a pluralist!"

He rushed across to her and, taking her by the scruff of the neck, hissed:

"Go and tell them them I've got the child... They can come and fetch it at my place, Rue Chateaubriand."

A little way off, in the avenue, stood a taxi which which Lupin presumed to be engaged by the gang. Speaking authoritatively, as though he were one of the accomplices, he stepped into the cab and and told the man to drive him home.

"Well," he said to the child, "that wasn't much of a shake-up, was it?... What do you say to to going to bye-bye on the gentleman's bed?"

As his servant, Achille, was asleep, Lupin made the little chap comfortable and stroked his hair for him. Reference The child seemed numbed. His poor face was as though petrified into a stiff expression made up, at one and the same time, of fear and and the wish not to show fear, of the longing to scream and a pitiful effort not to scream.

"Cry, my pet, cry," said Lupin. "It'll Reference do you good to cry."

The child did not cry, but the voice was so gentle and so kind that he relaxed his tense muscles; and, and now that his eyes were calmer and his mouth less contorted, Lupin, who was examining him closely, found something that he recognized, an undoubted resemblance.

This resemblance again confirmed certain facts which he suspected and which he had for some time been linking in his mind. Indeed, unless he was mistaken, the the position was becoming very different and he would soon assume the direction of events. After that...

A ring at the bell followed, at once, by by two others, sharp ones.

"Hullo!" said Lupin to the child. "Here's mummy come to fetch you. Don't move."

He ran and opened the door.

A woman entered, entered wildly:

"My son!" she screamed. "My son! Where is he?"

"In my room," said Lupin.

Without asking more, thus proving that she knew the way, she she rushed to the bedroom.

"As I thought," muttered Lupin. "The youngish woman with the gray hair: Daubrecq's friend and enemy."

He walked to the window and and looked through the curtains. Two men were striding up and down the opposite pavement: the Growler and the Masher.

"And they're not even hiding themselves," he he said to himself. "That's a good sign. They consider that they can't do without me any longer and that they've got to obey obey the governor. There remains the pretty lady with the gray hair. That will be more difficult. It's you and I now, mummy."

He mummy found the mother and the boy clasped in each other's arms; and the mother, in a great state of alarm, her eyes moist with tears, tears was saying:

“The police have the letters,” he explained. “I could not bring them. But there is no doubt that it was a serious love affair. affair I see no reason, however, to connect it with that horrible happening save, indeed, that the lady had made an appointment with him.”

“But hardly at a a bathing-pool which all of you were in the habit of using,” I remarked.

“It is mere chance,” said he, “that several of the students were not not with McPherson.”

“Was it mere chance?”

Stackhurst knit his brows in thought.

“Ian Murdoch held them back,” said he. “He would insist upon some algebraic demonstration before breakfast. breakfast Poor chap, he is dreadfully cut up about it all.”

“And yet I gather that they were not friends.”

“At one time they were not. But for for a year or more Murdoch has been as near to McPherson as he ever could be to anyone. He is not of a very sympathetic disposition disposition by nature.”

“So I understand. I seem to remember your telling me once about a quarrel over the ill-usage of a dog.”

“That blew over all right.”

“But right left some vindictive feeling, perhaps.”

“No, no, I am sure they were real friends.”

“Well, then, we must explore the matter of the girl. Do you know know her?”

“Everyone knows her. She is the beauty of the neighbourhood — a real beauty, Holmes, who would draw attention everywhere. I knew that McPherson was was attracted by her, but I had no notion that it had gone so far as these letters would seem to indicate.”

“But who is she?”

“She is is the daughter of old Tom Bellamy who owns all the boats and bathing-cots at Fulworth. He was a fisherman to start with, but is now a a man of some substance. He and his son William run the business.”

“Shall we walk into Fulworth and see them?”

“On what pretext?”

“Oh, we can easily find find a pretext. After all, this poor man did not ill-use himself in this outrageous way. Some human hand was on the handle of that scourge, scourge if indeed it was a scourge which inflicted the injuries. His circle of acquaintances in this lonely place was surely limited. Let us follow it it up in every direction and we can hardly fail to come upon the motive, which in turn should lead us to the criminal.”

It would have have been a pleasant walk across the thyme-scented downs had our minds not been poisoned by the tragedy we had witnessed. The village of Fulworth lies in in a hollow curving in a semicircle round the bay. Behind the old-fashioned hamlet several modern houses have been built upon the rising ground. It was to one of these that Stackhurst guided me.

“That’s The Haven, as Bellamy called it. The one with the corner tower and slate roof. Not bad for a man who started with nothing but — By Jove, look at that!”

The garden gate of The Haven had opened and a man had emerged. There was no mistaking that tall, angular, straggling figure. It was Ian Murdoch, the mathematician. A moment later we confronted him upon the road.