dently in this case, for Blyth's a town that's not so far away."
Far away or near away, it took me some hours to get to Blyth, for I had to drive to Alnwick, and later to change at Morpeth, and again at Newsham. But there I was at last, in the middle of the afternoon, and there, on the platform to meet me was the detective, as rubicund and cheerful as ever, and full of gratitude for my speedy response to his request.
"I got your telegram, Mr. Middlebrook," he remarked as we walked away from the station, "and I've booked you the most comfortable room I could get in the hotel, which is a nice quiet house where we'll be able to talk in privacy, for barring you and myself there's nobody stopping in it, except a few commercial travellers, and to be sure, they've their own quarters. You'll have had your lunch?"
"While I waited at Morpeth," I answered.
"Aye," he said, "I figured on that. So we'll just get into a corner of the smoking-room and have a quiet glass over a cigar, and I'll tell you what I've made out here—and a very strange and queer tale it is, and one that's worth hearing, whether it really has to do with our affair or no!"
"You're not sure that it has?" I asked.
"I'm as sure as may be that it probably has!" he replied. "But still, there's a gulf between extreme probability and absolute certainty that's a bit wider than the unthinking reckon for. However, here we are—and we'll just get comfortable."
Scarterfield's ideas of comfort, I found, were to dispose himself in the easiest of chairs in the quietest of corners with whisky and soda on one hand and a
