Mrs. Pendean, who has told me the full story of the past, was able to assure me that the men had become exceedingly friendly, and that certain differences, which existed between them at the outbreak of the war, were entirely composed.  And even granting that they quarrelled again, the quarrel must have suddenly sprung up.  That seems improbable and one can’t easily imagine a sudden row so tremendous that it ends in murder.

“Redmayne was a big, powerful man and he may have struck without intention to kill; but this mess means more than a blow with a fist.  I think that he was a homicidal maniac and probably plotted the job beforehand with a madman’s limited cunning; and if that is so, there’s pretty sure to be news waiting for us at Princetown.  Before dark we ought to know where are both the dead and the living man.  These footprints mean a bather, or perhaps two.  We’ll study them later and drag the pond, if necessary.”

The correctness of Brendon’s deduction was made manifest within an hour, and the operations of Robert Redmayne defined up to a point.  A man was waiting at the police station—­George French, ostler at Two Bridges Hotel, on West Dart.

“I knew Captain Redmayne,” he said, “because he’d been down once or twice of late to tea at Two Bridges.  Last night, at half after ten, I was crossing the road from the garage and suddenly, without warning, a motor bike came over the bridge.  I heard the rush of it and only got out of the way by a yard.  There was no light showing but the man went through the beam thrown from the open door of the hotel and I saw it was the captain by his great mustache and his red waistcoat.

“He didn’t see me, because it was taking him all his time to look after himself, and he’d just let her go, to rush the stiff hill that rises out of Two Bridges.  He was gone like a puff of smoke and must have been running terrible fast—­fifty mile an hour I dare say.  We heard as there was trouble at Princetown and master sent me up over to report what I’d seen.”

“Which way did he go after he had passed, Mr. French?” asked Brendon, who knew the Dartmoor country well.  “The road forks above Two Bridges.  Did he take the right hand for Dartmeet, or the left for Post Bridge and Moreton?”

But George could not say.

“’Twas like a thunder planet flashing by,” he told Mark, “and I don’t know from Adam which way he went after he’d got up on top.”

“Was anybody with him?”

“No, sir.  I’d have seen that much; but he carried a big sack behind the saddle—­that I can swear to.”

There had been several telephone calls for Inspector Halfyard during his absence; and now three separate statements from different districts awaited him.  These were already written out by a constable, and he took them one by one, read them, and handed them to Brendon.  The first came from the post office at Post Bridge, and the post-mistress reported that a man, one Samuel White, had seen a motor bicycle run at great speed without lights up the steep hill northward of that village on the previous night.  He gave the time as between half past ten and eleven o’clock.