leafy cascades; the road itself was in places ankle deep in mud.
He stopped under the protecting cover of a big tree to fill and
light his pipe and with its bowl turned downwards continued his
walk. But for the driving rain which searched every crevice and
found every chink in his waterproof armor, he preferred, indeed
welcomed, the walk.

The road from Beston Tracey to Little Beston was associated in his
mind with some of the finest situations in his novels. It was on
this road that he had conceived "The Tilbury Mystery." Between the
station and the house he had woven the plot which had made
"Gregory Standish" the most popular detective story of the year.
For John Lexman was a maker of cunning plots.

If, in the literary world, he was regarded by superior persons as
a writer of "shockers," he had a large and increasing public who
were fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote,
and who held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they
came to the denouement he had planned.

But no thought of books, or plots, or stories filled his troubled
mind as he strode along the deserted road to Little Beston. He
had had two interviews in London, one of which under ordinary
circumstances would have filled him with joy: He had seen T. X.
and "T. X." was T. X. Meredith, who would one day be Chief of the
Criminal Investigation Department and was now an Assistant
Commissioner of Police, engaged in the more delicate work of that
department.

In his erratic, tempestuous way, T. X. had suggested the greatest