He was somewhat overweary after a strenuous year; but to Dartmoor
he always came for health and rest when opportunity offered, and
now he had returned for the third time to the Duchy Hotel at
Princetown--there to renew old friendships and amuse himself on the
surrounding trout streams through the long days of June and July.

Brendon enjoyed the interest he awakened among other fishermen and,
though he always went upon his expeditions alone, usually joined the
throng in the smoking-room after dinner. Being a good talker he
never failed of an audience there. But better still he liked an hour
sometimes with the prison warders. For the convict prison that
dominated that grey smudge in the heart of the moors known as
Princetown held many interesting and famous criminals, more than one
of whom had been "put through" by him, and had to thank Brendon's
personal industry and daring for penal servitude. Upon the prison
staff were not a few men of intelligence and wide experience who
could tell the detective much germane to his work. The psychology of
crime never paled in its intense attraction for Brendon and many a
strange incident, or obscure convict speech, related without comment
to him by those who had witnessed, or heard them, was capable of
explanation in the visitor's mind.

He had found an unknown spot where some good trout dwelt and on an
evening in mid-June he set forth to tempt them. He had discovered
certain deep pools in a disused quarry fed by a streamlet, that
harboured a fish or two heavier than most of those surrendered daily
by the Dart and Meavy, the Blackabrook and the Walkham.

Foggintor Quarry, wherein lay these preserves, might be approached
in two ways. Originally broken into the granite bosom of the moor