“Probably at The George. If you get there before me, you can order dinner for eight o’clock. Anyhow we’ll meet at eight, if not before.”

“Good.” He nodded to Antony and strode off back to Stanton again.

Antony stood watching him with a little smile at his enthusiasm. Then he looked round slowly, as if in search of something. Suddenly he saw what he wanted. Twenty yards farther on a lane wandered off to the left, and there was a gate a little way up on the right-hand side of it. Antony walked to the gate, filling his pipe as he went. Then he lit his pipe, sat on the gate, and took his head in his hands.

“Now then,” he said to himself, “let’s begin at the beginning.”

It was nearly eight o’clock when William Beverley, the famous sleuthhound, arrived, tired and dusty, at The George, to find Antony, cool and clean, standing bareheaded at the door, waiting for him.