"Scotland Yard can do that for themselves," Tallente observed. "My wife and the greater part of the domestic staff left here for London a week ago."

The representative of the law saluted solemnly.

"I am sorry that you have not felt inclined to treat me with more confidence in this matter, Mr. Tallente," he said.

He took his leave then. Tallente heard him conversing for some time with Robert and saw him in the garden, interviewing the small boy.

Afterwards, he climbed into his car and drove away. Tallente opened his safe and once more let the little array of folded papers slip through his hands. Then he rang the bell for Robert, who presently appeared.

"The inspector has quite finished with you?" his master asked.

Robert was a portly man, a little unhealthy in colour and a little short of breath. He had been ga.s.sed in the war and his nerves were not what they had been. It was obvious, as he stood on the other side of the table, that he was trembling.

"Quite, sir. He was enquiring about Mr. Palliser."

His master nodded.

"I am afraid he will find it a little difficult to obtain any information round here," he remarked. "There are certain things connected with that young man which may throw a new light upon his disappearance."

"Indeed, sir?" Robert murmured.

Tallente glanced towards the safe.

"Robert," he confided, "I have been robbed."

The man started a little.

"Indeed, sir?" he replied. "Nothing very valuable, I hope?"

"I have been robbed of papers," Tallente said quietly, "which in the wrong hands might ruin me. Mr. Palliser had a key to that safe. Have you ever seen it open?"

"Never, sir."

"When did Mr. Palliser arrive here?"

"On the evening train of the Monday, sir, that you arrived by on the Tuesday."

"Tell me, did he receive any visitors at all on the Tuesday?"

"There was a man came over from a house near Lynton, sir, said his name was Miller."

"Have you any idea what he wanted?"

"No certain idea, sir," Robert replied doubtfully. "Now I come to think of it, though, it seemed as though he had come to make Mr. Palliser some sort of an offer. After I had let him out, he came back and said something to Mr. Palliser about three thousand pounds, and Mr.

Palliser said he would let him know. I got the idea, somehow or other, that the transaction, whatever it might have been, was to be concluded on Tuesday night."

"Why didn't you tell me this before, Robert?" his master enquired.

"Other things drove it out of my mind, sir," the man confessed. "I didn't look upon it as of much consequence. I thought it was something to do with Mr. Palliser's private affairs."

Tallente glanced at the safe.

"I saw this man Miller at the station," he said, "when I arrived."

"That would be on his way back from here, sir," Robert acquiesced. "I gathered that he was coming back again after dinner in a car."

"Did you hear a car at all that night?"

"I rather fancied I did," the man a.s.serted. "I didn't take particular notice, though."

Tallente frowned.

"I am very much afraid, Robert," he said, "that wherever Mr. Palliser is, those papers are."

Robert shivered.

"Very good, sir," he said, in a low tone.

"Any speculations as to that young man's whereabouts," Tallente continued thoughtfully, "must necessarily be a matter of pure guesswork, but supposing, Robert, he should have wandered in that mist the wrong way--turned to the left, for instance, outside this window, instead of to the right--he might very easily have fallen over the cliff."

"The walk is very unsafe in the dark, sir," Robert acquiesced, looking down at the carpet.

"It was not my intention," Tallente remarked thoughtfully, "to kill the young man. A brawl in front of the windows was impossible, so I took him with me to the lookout. I suppose he was tactless and I lost my temper. I struck him on the chin and he went backwards, through that piece of rotten paling, you know, Robert--"

"I know, sir," the man interrupted, with a little moan. "Please don't!"

Tallente shrugged his shoulders.

"I took him at no disadvantage," he said coolly. "He knew how to use the gloves and he was twenty years younger than I. However, there it is.

Backwards he went, all legs and arms and shrieks. And with him went the papers he had stolen.--At twelve o'clock to-night, Robert, I must go down after him."

"It's impossible, sir! It's a sheer precipice for four hundred feet!"

"Nothing of the sort," was the cool reply. "There are heaps of ledges and little clumps of pines and yews. All that you will have to do is to pull up the rope when I am ready. You can fasten it to a tree when I go down."

"It's not worth it, sir," the man protested anxiously. "No one will ever find the body down there."

"Send the boy home to stay with his parents to-night," Tallente continued. "Your wife, I suppose, can be trusted?"

"She is living up at the garage, sir," Robert answered. "Besides, she is deaf. I'll tell her that I am sleeping in the house to-night as you are not very well. And forgive me, sir--her ladyship left a message.

She hoped you would lunch with her to-morrow."

Tallente strolled out again in a few minutes, curiously impatient of the restraint of walls, and clambered up the precipitous field at the back of the Manor. Far up the winding road which led back into the world, a motor-car was crawling on its way up over. He watched it through a pair of field gla.s.ses. Leaning back in the tonneau with folded arms, as though solemnly digesting a problem, was Inspector Gillian. Tallente closed the gla.s.ses with a little snap and smiled.

"The Bucket type," he murmured to himself, "very much the Bucket type."

CHAPTER V