“What I’m doing is to compare your verbal statement with Mr. Redmayne’s written communication,” he said, patting his book.  “My old friend goes back a long way farther than you would, because he knows a lot more than you did.  It’s all here.  I’ve got a regard for my eyes, so I had it typed.  You’d better read it, however.  You’ll find the story of Robert Redmayne from childhood and the story of the girl, his niece, and of her dead father.  Mrs. Doria’s father was a rough customer—­scorpions to Robert’s whips apparently—­a man a bit out of the common; yet he never came to open clash with the law.  You never thought of Robert’s dead brother, Henry, did you!  But you’d be surprised how we can get at character and explain contradictions by studying the different members of a family.”

“I shall like to read the report.”

“It’s valuable to us, because written without prejudice.  That’s where it beats your very lucid account, Mark.  There was something running through your story, like a thread of silk in cotton, that you won’t find here.  It challenged me from the jump, my boy, and I’m inclined to think that in that thread of silk I shall just find the reason of your failure, before I’ve wound it up.”

“I don’t understand you, Ganns.”

“You wouldn’t—­not yet.  But we’ll change the metaphor.  We’ll say there was a red herring drawn across the trail, and that you took the bait and, having started right enough, presently forsook the right scent for the wrong.”

“Puzzle—­to find the red herring,” said Mark.

Mr. Ganns smiled.

“I think I’ve found it,” he replied.  “But on the other hand, perhaps I haven’t.  In twenty-four hours I shall know.  I hope I’m right—­for your sake.  If I am, then you are discharged without a stain on your character; if I’m not, then the case is black against you.”

Brendon made no reply.  Neither his conscience nor his wit threw any light on the point.  Then Peter, turning to his notes, touched on a minor incident and showed the other that it admitted of a doubt.

“D’you remember the night you left ‘Crow’s Nest’ after your first visit?  On the way back to Dartmouth you suddenly saw Robert Redmayne standing by a gate; and when the moonlight revealed you to him, he leaped away and disappeared into the trees.  Why?”

“He knew me.”

“How?”

“We had met at Princetown and we had spoken together for some minutes by the pool in Foggintor Quarry, where I was fishing.”

“That’s right.  But he didn’t know who you were then.  Even if he’d remembered meeting you six months before in the dusk at Foggintor, why should he think you were a man who was hunting him?”

Mark reflected.

“That’s true,” he said.  “Probably he’d have bolted from anybody that night, not wishing to be seen.”

“I only raise the question.  Of course it is easily explained on a general assumption that Redmayne knew every man’s hand was against him.  He would naturally, in his hunted state, fly the near approach of a man.”