This took, maybe, twenty minutes; but Mr. Rogers was a sportsman, and thought of his horse before himself.  Not till all was done, and well done, did he announce again that he was devilish peckish; nor did I take the measure of his meaning until, returning to the breakfast-room where Mr. Goodfellow sat before a plate of bread and cream, he helped himself to a mass of veal pie fit for a giant, and before attacking it drained a tankard of cider at a single pull, while he nodded over the rim to Captain Branscome, to whom Plinny introduced him.

“Jack,” said Miss Belcher, with a jerk of her thumb towards the Captain, “I’ll lay you two to one in guineas, that our news is more important than yours!”

“I take you,” said Mr. Rogers.

“It will save time if we tell it while you’re eating, and will save you the trouble of talking with your mouth full.”

Once or twice, while she abridged Captain Branscome’s narrative, Mr. Rogers set down knife and fork, and stared at her with round eyes, his jaws slowly chewing.

“And I reckon,” concluded Miss Belcher, “that you won’t dispute your owing me a guinea.”

“Wait a bit!” Mr. Rogers pushed his empty plate away, selected a clean one, and helped himself to six slices of ham.  “To begin with, I’ve found scent and laid on the hounds.”

“Where?”

“At St. Mawes.  Captain Coffin, the murdered man, landed there from the ferry on the night of the 11th, at a few minutes before nine, and walked straight to the Lugger Inn, above the quay.  There he borrowed fifteen shillings off the landlord, who knew him well; ordered two glasses of hot gin-and-water, drank them, paid down sixpence, and took the road that leads east through Gerrans village.  His tale was that he had a relative to visit at Plymouth Dock, and meant to push on that night so far as Probus, and there sleep and wait for Russell’s waggon.”

“But his road,” I objected, “wouldn’t lie through Gerrans village, unless he went by the short cut through the field beyond St. Mawes, and took the ferry at Percuil.”

“Right, lad; and that is precisely what he did; for—­to push ahead a bit—­we overran his track on the main road, and, learning of that same short cut, drove back along the other side of the creek to Percuil, and had a talk with the ferryman.  The ferryman told us that at ten o’clock, or thereabouts, he was going to bed having closed the ferry, when a voice on the other shore began bawling ‘Over!’ He slipped on his boots again, rowed across, and took over a man who was certainly Captain Coffin.”

“He was alone?” I asked.

“He came across the ferry alone,” said Mr. Rogers, “and I dare say he had no idea of being followed.  But back at St. Mawes, while he was drinking gin-and-water in the taproom, another man came to the door of the Lugger.  This man sent for the landlord—­Bogue by name—­and asked to be shown into a private room.  He was dressed in odds-and-ends of garments, including a soiled regimental coat and dirty linen trousers.”