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disappear—or rather, actually on Wednesday: his sleeper was for Wednesday."

"I don't think he meant to sleep the Tuesday night at the Hatcheries. He had transferred his base somewhere else—to London, I suppose—and his visit to Paston Whitchurch, on the pretext of picking up something he had left behind, was merely meant to establish, in our eyes, the fact that he was a different man from Brotherhood."

"There's one more thing, though," said Marryatt; "I'm afraid it's a kind of professional objection. Is it possible that a man who was really an atheist would be at the pains to go over every Sunday to Mass at Paston Bridge? Davenant, you see, was very regular about that. Or, granted that he was really a Catholic, could he bring himself to get up and preach atheist doctrines on the village green?"

Carmichael pulled a wry face. "I'm afraid, Marryatt, you are altogether too confiding. Don't you see that he was a Catholic, and was doing the work of his own Church by turning the villagers against you and your doctrines? Don't you see that if he managed to make atheists of your people, it would be all the easier for the priest at Paston Bridge to make Romans of them?"

"In fact," said Gordon, "what it comes to is this: we have got to look for a criminal still; but it's no use looking for Davenant?"

"You would be chasing a phantom," said Carmichael.