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food, and now proposed that the party should drive on to the common and picnic there. Bob was in favour of this, and Roger, who would have liked to accept the invitation to re-enter Whiteledge, said nothing and so was held to be in agreement.
    He backed the car away from the house, and, as he did so, an easily-recognized figure passed George and, descending the steps from the portico, began to walk towards the gate.
    ‘Oh, do stop!’ said Dorothy. ‘Look! It’s Mrs Bradley, and I think she’s waving to us.’ Mrs Bradley soon came up to them. She was wearing a tweed costume in which a remarkably lordly purple was the predominant hue, and had on a woollen jumper in another shade of purple. A bright yellow hat, which made her sallow complexion look muddy and tired, and a pair of wash-leather gloves completed her attire. Her black eyes were as brilliant as ever, and she held on the end of a lead a young Alsatian dog of exuberant disposition and inquisitive habits with which she seemed unable to cope.
    Dorothy lowered the window and wished Mrs Bradley good morning.
    ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I thought it might be.’
    ‘What made you think that?’
    ‘When I was your age, dear child, wild horses would not have kept me away from a house into which I had been kidnapped; which I had left in a hasty and surreptitious manner following some (probably fatherly) advice given me by the butler; and to which I had been persuaded, or, shall we say, compelled to return.’
    Dorothy, who had seen most of the previous night’s proceedings in exactly this light, smiled appreciatively.
    ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘but it’s serious.’
    ‘I know,’ said Dorothy. ‘We met George, and brought him back with us, as you saw.’
    ‘I thought you would. I posted him there to meet you and ask (I hope he did it tactfully) for a lift.’
    ‘But he wasn’t on any road that we ought to have come by! How could you think we might meet him? And does that mean—?’ She paused. It seemed pertinent but slightly impudent to ask whether Mrs Bradley had wanted to see them again.
    ‘Sim,’ Mrs Bradley explained, ‘had heard you ask for your tickets. I had a word with Sim when he had brought you back to the house. Then I drove you home. I did not imagine that you would repeat your long walk of yesterday to get to the house, and therefore it seemed feasible to suppose that you might come by car. I had gathered enough of Mr Hoskyn’s mentality and reactions …’she grinned at the tall young man—‘to deduce that he would not come along main roads if he could avoid them, and I trusted to luck that our Roman road might appeal to him, and that neither you nor he would know that it petered out in a wood.’
    ‘Well, I’m dashed!’ said Roger. ‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Bradley, this is Bob.’
    ‘My brother,’ Dorothy explained. ‘He’s sprained his ankle.’
    ‘So I heard at dinner last night. Down, Fido!’ she added, addressing, apologetically, the dog.
    ‘Is his name Fido? Isn’t he a darling?’ said Dorothy.
    ‘His name is not Fido, and he is not a darling,’ Mrs Bradley responded. ‘He is good-looking and a villain. I hope, however, that he may be useful to the police. Or, if not to the police, perhaps to me.’
    ‘George mentioned the police,’ said Roger. ‘I say, I do hope there’s nothing seriously wrong.’
    ‘We don’t know what to think. Mr Lingfield left Mrs Denbies at about five o’clock last evening, and since then nothing has been seen or heard of him. Mary Leith thinks he may have met with an accident, as his riderless horse galloped back to its stable at six. I have decided to go out on to the moor with the dog, and see whether he can pick up a trail. He is young and undisciplined—he belongs to Miss Clandon—but he may do something. He was always petted by Mr Lingfield, and would try to go everywhere with him.’
    ‘Do let us give you a lift,’ said Roger at once. Mrs Bradley accepted the