“As to the water, we do know the explanation,” said the detective.  “I didn’t tumble to it at first myself, being a Cockney; but a little talk with Jake and the other fisherman about the old smuggling days put me straight about that.  But I admit the dried remains still stump us all.  All the same—­”

A shadow fell across the table, and his talk was sharply cut short.  Ashe was standing under the painted sign, buttoned up grimly in black, and with the face of the hanging judge, of which the poet had spoken, plain this time in the broad sunlight.  Behind him stood two big men in plain clothes, very still; but Paynter knew instantly who they were.

“We must move at once,” said the lawyer.  “Dr. Burton Brown is leaving the village.”

The tall detective sprang to his feet, and Paynter instinctively imitated him.

“He has gone up to the Trehernes possibly to say good-by,” went on Ashe rapidly.  “I’m sorry, but we must arrest him in the garden there, if necessary.  I’ve kept the lady out of the way, I think.  But you”—­addressing the factitious landscape painter—­“must go up at once and rig up that easel of yours near the table and be ready.  We will follow quietly, and come up behind the tree.  We must be careful, for it’s clear he’s got wind of us, or he wouldn’t be doing a bolt.”

“I don’t like this job,” remarked Paynter, as they mounted toward the park and garden, the detective darting on ahead.

“Do you suppose I do?” asked Ashe; and, indeed, his strong, heavy face looked so lined and old that the red hair seemed unnatural, like a red wig.  “I’ve known him longer than you, though perhaps I’ve suspected him longer as well.”

When they topped the slope of the garden the detective had already erected his easel, though a strong breeze blowing toward the sea rattled and flapped his apparatus and blew about his fair (and false) beard in the wind.  Little clouds curled like feathers, were scudding seaward across the many-colored landscape, which the American art critic had once surveyed on a happier morning; but it is doubtful if the landscape painter paid much attention to it.  Treherne was dimly discernible in the doorway of what was now his house; he would come no nearer, for he hated such a public duty more bitterly than the rest.  The others posted themselves a little way behind the tree.  Between the lines of these masked batteries the black figure of the doctor could be seen coming across the green lawn, traveling straight, as a bullet, as he had done when he brought the bad news to the woodcutter.  To-day he was smiling, under the dark mustache that was cut short of the upper lip, though they fancied him a little pale, and he seemed to pause a moment and peer through his spectacles at the artist.

The artist turned from his easel with a natural movement, and then in a flash had captured the doctor by the coat collar.