cashbox. It had been battered open, presumably by a stone, and flung
into the brook a hundred yards below Miss Belcher's lodge-gate."

"The cashbox?" My brain whirled.

"The key was in your father's pocket. He had fetched the box from
his room, it appears, about two hours before, and carried it out to
the summer-house. I cannot tell you with what purpose he carried it
out there, but it was quite contrary to his routine."

She poured out a cup of tea, and passed it to me with shaking hands.
She pressed me to eat, and all the time she kept talking, sometimes
lucidly, sometimes quite incoherently; and I listened in a kind of
dream. My father had been well-nigh a stranger to me, and I divined
that I should never sorrow for his loss as those sorrow who have
genuinely loved. But his death, and the manner of it, shocked me
dreadfully, and from the shock my brain kept harking away to Captain
Coffin and his pursuer. Could they have reached Minden Cottage?
And, if so, had their visit any connection with this crime?
Captain Danny had started for Minden Cottage. . . . Had he arrived?
And, if so--

I heard Miss Plinlimmon asking: "Would you care to see him--that is,
dear, if you feel strong enough? His expression is wonderfully
tranquil."

She led me upstairs and opened the door for me. A sheet covered my
father from feet to chin, and above it his head lay back on the
pillow, his features, clear-cut and aquiline, keeping that massive
repose which, though it might seem to be deeper now in the shade of