“I’ll take a look around that brook again, and see if that strange man is anywhere in sight,” he told himself, and got back to the vicinity without delay.

Fortune favored him for once, for scarcely had he reached the back of the Langmore mansion when he saw the stranger leap the brook again and come up towards the house.

“Just in time,” murmured the detective.  “He shall not slip me again in a hurry.”

The stranger was very much on his guard, and Adam Adams had all he could do to keep out of his sight.  It was now growing dark, especially under the trees which surrounded the mansion.

At length the fellow gained a point almost under one of the library windows.  He gazed around sharply, and then appeared to be searching for something on the ground.  The detective saw him start to pick something up, but at that moment the side door of the mansion opened and the policeman came out.

“Hullo!  What are you doing here?” demanded the officer.

“Oh, that’s all right,” was the low answer.  “Don’t mind me.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“Just looking around, that’s all.”

“You haven’t any right in this yard.”

“I think I have.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Watkins—­Jack Watkins,” and then some words followed which Adam Adams did not catch.

“Oh, then I suppose that makes a difference,” came from the policeman in a more humble tone.  “Do you want to come in the house and see Miss Langmore?”

“No, I don’t want to see the girl.  But I’ll come into the house,” answered the strange man, and walked up the piazza steps and into the mansion, with the policeman by his side.

As soon as the fellow was ought of sight, Adam Adams drew closer and looked under the bushes where the other had been searching.

At first he saw nothing, but then his keen eye detected a bit of paper, caught at the foot of some shrubbery.

“More documentary evidence, perhaps,” he murmured, as he shoved the paper into his pocket.  “I wonder if this connects with the piece I found under the safe?”

He approached the window, the blinds of which were closed, and peered through the slats.  A light had been lit, and the policeman and the stranger had just entered the room.

“I don’t think you’ll find much to interest you,” said the officer.  “All of the others have hunted around, and they didn’t find much.”

The stranger walked around the apartment slowly, and then sank into an armchair.

“Sit down and have a smoke with me,” he said, pulling out his cigar case.  “You’ve got a long night before you.”

“I am not going to stay up all night.  The women folks and me are going to take turns.  They should have sent another man here, but the Chief couldn’t spare him, two of the men being sick.”

Cigars were lit, and the pair smoked away for several minutes, talking of the case in all of its details.  Evidently the stranger agreed with the general public regarding Margaret Langmore’s guilt.