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she said if anything happened to her or anything special happened, then I was to tell you and ask you to help me get them and you and I are to decide.”
    â€œMorbid sort of idea,” Bobby said. “Reminds one of Rossetti burying his poems with his wife and then digging them up again.”
    â€œOh, it’s not like that,” Olive exclaimed. “This isn’t a grave.”
    â€œGood thing, too,” said Bobby, “only what does she mean—we’re to decide. Decide what?”
    â€œPublication, that’s what she said. About publication,” Olive answered.
    â€œWell, it’s about the rummiest idea I ever heard of,” Bobby grumbled. “I don’t see why she picks on you for the job either. Why can’t she do it now herself, or put it in her will or something?”
    Olive had no explanation to offer, and Bobby, a little tired of the Kayne library and everything connected with it, was glad to direct the conversation to more personal matters.
    They managed to secure an hour or two to themselves, and then came dinner. It proved but a dull meal. Miss Kayne hardly spoke, and Mr. Broast, talkative as he had been in the library, was not equally taciturn, though Bobby caught now and again sharp glances thrown at him with that curious intensity of expression of or expectation he had seemed to detect before.
    Presently, however, a reason came out. Mr. Broast believed he had caught sight of someone prowling about in the grounds near the library where no stranger had any right to be, and he was very worried. He had called out, but whoever it was had vanished without making any reply. A burglar in his opinion. Perhaps that Mr. Adams staying at the village inn. Mr. Broast had had his doubts of Mr. Adams from the first, and now he felt them more than justified.
    â€œTold me he was connected with the University of Nebraska,” said Mr. Broast darkly. “No credentials to show, though. In my opinion, he had never been near any University in his life. He wanted to see the Mandeville leaves, wanted to photograph them. Delighted, of course, to give every facility to anyone from any university of standing, but then, is he? Or is he wanting to see what he can pick up? What do you think, Mr. Owen?”
    Bobby suggested warning the local police constable, though privately of opinion that the stooping, blinking Mr. Adams looked little like any burglar he had ever met.
    After dinner it was nearly time for Bobby to depart. He lingered as long as he dared and then started off. Olive wanted to come with him as far as the Wynton Arms, where he had left his motor cycle, but the night was dark, the road unlighted and the weather uninviting, with a faint splutter of rain beginning.
    So Bobby set off alone. On his way he had to pass the building that was both the local police station and the home of the resident village constable. The door was open, and in the little room that served as an office two people were talking loudly. Bobby, wondering what was happening, stood still for a moment before going on and then the policeman, a man named Mills, who had never had to deal with anything much more serious than a theft of poultry or an unlighted bicycle lamp, came running after him.
    â€œBeg pardon,” he said. “I saw you passing. It’s Mr. Owen, isn’t it? It’s the talk here, belonging to Scotland Yard, up at London.”
    â€œYes, why?” asked Bobby, guessing that for some reason he was wanted back in town at once.
    Constable Mills paused to wipe his forehead. In the light of the gas lamp above the door he looked pale and excited.
    â€œThere’s a gentleman come in,” he said, “American gentleman, staying at the Wynton Arms. He says there’s been murder done up at the Lodge in the library, he says he looked in and saw a dead man lying there all over blood.”

CHAPTER VI
SECOND REPORT
    Behind Mills, framed in the lighted doorway of the little