“You know, of course,” he began, “that Craig was arrested at Liverpool in consequence of communications from the New York police.  I understand that it was with great difficulty he was discovered, and it is quite clear that some one on the ship had been heavily bribed.  However, he was arrested, brought to London, and then down here for purposes of identification.  I would have gone to London myself, and in fact offered to do so, but on the other hand, as there are many others on the estate to whom he was well-known, I thought that it would be better to have more evidence than mine alone.  Accordingly, they left London one afternoon, and I sent a dogcart to the station to meet them.  They arrived quite safely and started for here, Craig handcuffed to one of the Scotland Yard men on the back seat, and the other in front with the driver.  About half a mile from the south entrance to the park, the road runs across a rather desolate strip of country with a lot of low undergrowth on one side.  We have had a little trouble with poachers, as there is a sort of gipsy camp on some common land a short distance away.  My head-keeper, to whom the very idea of a poacher is intolerable, was patrolling this ground himself that afternoon, and caught sight of one of these gipsy fellows setting a trap.  He chased him, and more, I am sure, to frighten him than anything else, when he saw that the fellow was getting away he fired his gun, just as the dog-cart was passing.  The horse shied, the wheel caught a great stone by the side of the road, and all four men were thrown out.  The man to whom Craig was handcuffed was stunned, but Craig himself appears to have been unhurt.  He jumped up, took the key of the handcuffs from the pocket of the officer, undid them, and slipped off into the undergrowth before either the groom or the other Scotland Yard man had recovered their senses.  To cut a long story short, that was last Thursday, and up till now not a single trace of the fellow has been discovered.”

Quest rose abruptly to his feet.

“I’d like to take this matter up right on the spot where Craig disappeared,” he suggested.  “Couldn’t we do that?”

“By all means,” Lord Ashleigh agreed, touching a bell.  “We have several hours before we change for dinner.  I will have a car round and take you to the spot.”

The Professor acquiesced readily, and very soon they stepped out of the automobile on to the side of a narrow road, looking very much as it had been described.  Further on, beyond a stretch of open common, they could see the smoke from the gipsy encampment.  On their left-hand side was a stretch of absolutely wild country, bounded in the far distance by the grey stone wall of the park.  Lord Ashleigh led the way through the thicket, talking as he went.

“Craig came along through here,” he explained.  “The groom and the Scotland Yard man who had been sitting by his side followed him.  They searched for an hour but found no trace of him at all.  Then they returned to the house to make a report and get help.  I will now show you how Craig first eluded them.”