I stood now free of the vital object in a murder—­the corpse, and it remained for me to create the false appearance of reality with which these operations have always been so successfully enshrouded.  I donned Redmayne’s clothes.  We were men nearly of a size and they fitted closely enough, though too large in detail.  I then adjusted my wig and mustaches, drew Robert’s cap over my head—­it was too large, but that mattered not.  I next obtained the sack, touched it in blood and put into it my handbag and a mass of fern and litter to fill it out.  Then I fastened it behind the motor bicycle—­an unwieldy object designed to create the necessary suspicion.

There was now nothing of either Redmayne or myself left at Foggintor.  The gloaming had long thickened to darkness when I went my way and laid the trail through Two Bridges, Postbridge and Ashburton to Brixham.  Once only was I bothered—­at the gate across the road by Brixham coast-guard station; but I lifted the motor bicycle over it and presently ascended to the cliffs of Berry Head.  Fate favoured me in details, for, despite the hour, there were witnesses to every step of the route; I even passed a fisher lad, descending from the lighthouse for a doctor, where no witness might have been hoped for or expected.  Thus my course was followed and each stage of the long journey correctly recorded.

On the cliff I emptied my sack, cast its stuffing to the winds, fastened my handbag to the bicycle, thrust the bloodstained sack into a rabbit hole, where it could not fail to be discovered, and then returned to Robert Redmayne’s lodging at Paignton.  There a telegram had already been sent informing the landlady of his return that night.  The place and its details I had gleaned from Redmayne himself; therefore I knew where he kept his machine and, having put it in its shed, entered the house about three o’clock with his latchkey and ate the ample meal left for his consumption.  Only a widow and her servant occupied the dwelling and they slept soundly enough.

I did not venture to seek Bob’s bedroom, for I knew not where it might lie; but I changed into the serge suit, cap and brown shoes of Doria and packed Redmayne’s clothes, tweeds and showy waistcoat, boots and stockings into my handbag with the wig and mustaches and my weapon.  Soon after four o’clock I left—­a clean-shorn, brown sailorman:  “Giuseppe Doria,” of immortal memory.

It was now light, but Paignton slumbered and I did not pass a policeman until half a mile from the watering-place.  Having admired the dawn over Torquay, I walked to Newton Abbot and reached that town before six o’clock.  At the railway station I breakfasted and presently took a train to Dartmouth.  Before noon I reached “Crow’s Nest” and made acquaintance with Bendigo Redmayne.  He was such a man as Jenny had led me to expect and I found it easy enough to win his friendship and esteem.

But he had little leisure for me at this moment, for there had already come news from his niece of the mysterious fatality on Dartmoor.