“None!” Faversham repeated the word, as though groping in his memory.  “None.  I never saw Will Brand that I can recollect.  But the description of him seems to tally with the man who knocked me over.”

“Well, we’ll find him,” said Tatham briskly.  “Any message for Green Cottage?”

“My best thanks.  I am very grateful to them.”

The words were formal.  He sank heavily into his chair, as though wishing to end the interview.  Tatham departed.

* * * * *

The inquest opened in the evening.  Faversham and the Dixons gave their evidence.  So did Undershaw and the police.  The jury viewed the body, and leave to bury was granted.  Then the inquiry adjourned.

For some ten days afterward, the whole of the Lake district hung upon the search for Brand.  From the Scawfell and Buttermere group on its western verge, to the Ullswater mountains on the east; from Skiddaw and Blencathra on the north, southward through all the shoulders and edges, the tarns and ghylls of the Helvellyn range; through the craggy fells of Thirlmere, Watendlath, Easedale; over the high plateaus that run up to the Pikes, and fall in precipice to Stickle Tarn; through the wild clefts and corries of Bowfell, the Crinkles, Wetherlam and the Old Man; over the desolate backs and ridges that stretch from Kirkstone to Kentmere and Long Sleddale, the great man-hunt passed, enlisting ever fresh feet, and fresh eyes in its service.  Every shepherd on the high fells became a detective, speeding news, or urging suggestions, by the old freemasonry of their tribe; while every farmhouse in certain dales, within reach of the scene of the murder, sent out its watchers by day and night, eagerly contributing its men and its wits to the chase.

For in this chase there was a hidden motive which found no expression in the local papers; of which men spoke to each other under their breaths, when they spoke at all; but which none the less became in a very short time, by the lightning spread of a few evil reports, through the stubble of popular resentment, the animating passion at the heart of it.  The police and Faversham’s few friends were searching for the murderer of Melrose; the public in general were soon hunting Faversham’s accomplice.  The discovery of Will Brand meant, in the one case, the arrest of a poor crazy fellow who had avenged by murder his father’s persecution and ruin; in the other case, it meant the unmasking of an educated and smooth-spoken villain, who, finding a vast fortune in danger, had taken ingenious means to secure it.  In this black suspicion there spoke the accumulated hatred of years, stored up originally, in the mind of a whole countryside, against a man who had flouted every law of good citizenship, and strained every legal right of property to breaking point; and discharging itself now, with pent-up force, upon the tyrant’s tool, conceived as the murderous plotter for his millions.  To realize the strength of the popular feeling, as it presently revealed itself, was to look shuddering into things elemental.