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job of the outhouse roof. The window was a more serious proposition; it was very narrow, and encumbered on the inside by an array of little bottles. It is easy to put your head and shoulders through such a window, but that means a nose-dive on to the floor. To put your legs through first is to court the possibility of promiscuous breakage. Very carefully Gordon removed all fragile objects out of range, and then with extreme discomfort squeezed his legs through the opening. Even so, there was a moment at which he felt his back must necessarily break, when he was just half-way through. Landing at last without misfortune, he set out quickly on a tour of the silent cottage.

It was only Davenant's part of the house that interested him—the bathroom, a bedroom, a small dining-room, and a study. They all bore the marks of recent inhabitation; but was this anything to go by? Davenant, in any case, would not be expected back for a week, and Sullivan did not strike Gordon as the kind of man who would be inclined to tidy up on Monday when Friday would do just as well. The bed, indeed, was made; but the grate in the study had not been cleared of cigarette-ends; the dining-room table was bare, but Monday's paper was still lying across a chair, as if thrown down at random. On the whole the evidence pointed to Monday as the day of departure; Monday, not Tuesday, appeared on a tear-off calendar; a letter which had arrived on Monday evening was still waiting in the hall; and there were no clothes left