By the following morning the rain had ceased, and Mr. Ludgrove was enabled to pursue his explorations in comfort. He went out directly after breakfast and returned to the Inn in time for lunch. In the afternoon he followed a different direction, arriving back shortly after dark. When he repaired to the smoking-room after supper, he found that his fame as a personal acquaintance of the murdered men had preceded him. Mr. Ludgrove was before all things a student of human nature, and he seemed almost to enjoy taking part with the leading men of Penderworth in an interminable discussion of the unsolved crimes. Perhaps he reflected that the looker-on sees most of the game, and that these men, viewing the circumstances from a distance, might have hit upon some point in the evidence which had escaped the observers on the spot.