“I heard the news being cried in Truro streets as we came through.  Poor old Coffin!  It is all mystery to me—­mystery on mystery!  But how on earth should my name have come up in connection with him?”

“Why, about your teaching him navigation, sir.”

Captain Branscome passed a hand over his forehead.

“Navigation?  Yes; to be sure, I taught him navigation—­or, rather, tried to.  But what of that?”

“Well, sir, Miss Belcher seemed to think it suspicious.”

He reached out a hand, and, taking the glasses from me, sat down upon the stone base of the flagstaff and began feebly to polish them.

“Impossible!” he said faintly, as if to himself; then aloud:  “The man was a friend of yours, too, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, sir; if you mean Captain Coffin, he was a friend of mine.”

“And of mine; and, as you say, he came to me to learn navigation.  Now, what connection there can be between that and his being murdered a dozen miles inland—­”

But here he broke off, and we both looked up and across the stream as, with a click of the latch, the door there creaked and opened, and Miss Belcher entered the garden.  She wore an orange-coloured dressing-gown, top-boots to guard her ankles from the morning dew, a red kerchief tied over her brow to keep her iron-grey locks in place, and over it her customary beaver hat—­et vera incessu patit dea.  Even thus attired did Miss Belcher, a goddess of the dawn, come striding over the footbridge and across the turf to us; and the effect of the apparition upon Captain Branscome’s nerves, after a night of travel alongside Russell’s van, I can only surmise.  I did not observe it, having for the moment no eyes for him.

“Hallo!” said Miss Belcher, walking straight up to us, and halting, with a hand planted, washerwoman fashion, on either hip, as Captain Branscome staggered to his feet and saluted.  “Hallo! who’s this?”

“Captain Branscome, ma’am,” stammered I.

“I thought as much.  And what is Captain Branscome doing here?”

“By your leave, ma’am,” said Captain Branscome, “I—­I was just dropping in for a talk here with my friend Harry Brooks.”

“H’m!” sniffed Miss Belcher, and eyed him up and down for a full ten seconds with an uncompromising stare.  “As an explanation, sir, you will allow that to be a trifle unsatisfactory.  What have you been eating lately?”

“Madam?”

Captain Branscome stared at her in weak bewilderment; and, indeed, the snort which accompanied Miss Belcher’s question seemed to accuse him of impregnating the morning air with a scent of onions.

“You can answer a plain question, I hope?” said she.  “When did you eat last, and what was it?”

“To be precise, ma’am—­though I don’t understand you—­it was an apple, and about—­let me see—­seven hours ago.”

Miss Belcher turned to me and nodded.