transport operations. The ostensible trade also, the blind under
which the thing was worked, was a transport trade. If brandy
smuggling were in progress something of precisely this kind would
have to be devised. In fact anything more suitable than the pit-prop
business would be hard to discover.

The third point he had thought of before. If brandy were to be
smuggled, no better locality could have been found for the venture
than this country round about Bordeaux. As one of the staple
products of the district, brandy could be obtained here, possibly
more easily than anywhere else.

The converse argument was equally inconclusive. What hypothesis
other than that of brandy smuggling could meet the facts? Hilliard
could not think of any, but he recognized that his failure did not
prove that none existed.

On the other hand, in spite of these considerations, he had to admit
that he had seen nothing which in the slightest degree supported the
theory, nor had he heard anything which could not equally well have
referred to something else.

But whatever their objective, he felt sure that the members of the
syndicate were desperate men. They were evidently too far committed
to hesitate over fresh crime to keep their secret. If he wished to
pursue his investigations, it was up to him to do so without arousing
their suspicions.

As he pondered over the problem of how this was to be done he became
more and more conscious of its difficulty. Such an inquiry to a