TIME passed, and April came to London, lighting the crocuses like little lamps along the borders of the parks. Nothing could have been kindlier than her coming or more cruel than her going, for it froze hard during the last few days of her month; buds were brought to untimely ruin and the ice on the ponds was sufficiently thick almost for skating.

But the first of May broke cloudless and warm, the herald of three weeks of perfect weather.

Mademoiselle Lefarge had gone back to France, and Hellier ought to have been on circuit.

But he was not in the mood for business. His mind was occupied by one thing, the Gyde case. A month had passed since the murder of Mr Goldberg and the occurrence in St Ann’s Road, yet not a word of the solution of the mystery had come to the public ears as to Sir Anthony Gyde; the public were beginning to forget him.

Occasionally some old clubman, a once friend of his, would remember the fact of his existence, wonder why the police had not caught him, and damn them for their inefficiency.

Up in Cumberland, where things, little or big, are not so easily forgotten, the affair was still being discussed in market-square and village ale-house. The Cottage on the Fells was deserted, and not for many decades could the most astute land-agent hope to let it again.

One night, it was the 8th of May, exactly a month and ten days after the murder, or the supposed murder, of Klein, a strange thing occurred.

A man named Davis, journeying from Alston to Langwathby on foot, lost his way upon the fells, at dusk, and wandered for several hours, till the rising moon showed him a few broken walls and remains of houses, and he knew that he had come to the old ruined fell village of Unthank.

In the time of the Plague a fugitive from London sought refuge in this village, and the inhabitants of it showed their hospitality by moving out of it en masse and leaving the plague-stricken one in undisputed possession. They built themselves another village, lower down, which they also labelled Unthank and which remains to this day.

Davis, recognizing the ruins, took them for a point of departure, and at last struck the road at the foot of the fells, which runs through Gamblesby and Melmerby to ............