“Yes, I did,” replied the Professor quietly. “A most isolated spot. I noticed that there was a path running past it. Where does that lead to?”

“It doesn’t lead nowheres in particular, sir. When the cottage was first occupied, before Morlandson’s time, it led out to the Studland road. That was the only way to the place before that railway line was built. The path’s still there, is it? I should have thought it would have been growed over by now.”

“No, you can still trace it,” said the Professor. “And, curiously enough, there were the marks of a bicycle wheel running along it.”

“A bicycle!” exclaimed the landlord. “Well, to be sure! When there’s a barge lying at Goathorn the fellows on board sometimes brings bicycles and rides in here by the side of the railway line, but I don’t know what could have taken any of them past the cottage there. Perhaps one of them wanted to get to Studland, though there’s a shorter way there from Goathorn through Newton. I should have said nobody used that path, not once a year.”