There then he stood, motionless on the pavement, the sheet spread before him flapping a little in the gusty night wind.

“Paper, sir!” yelled the boy, pausing in the road. “’Orrible—­”

The priest nodded; but he was not thinking much about the paper, and produced his halfpenny.  The paper was put into his hand, but he paid no attention to it.  He was still watching the motionless figure on the pavement.  About three minutes passed.  Then the young man suddenly and dexterously folded the paper, folded it again and slipped it into his pocket.  Then he set off walking and a moment later had vanished round the corner into Victoria Street.

* * * * *

The priest thought no more of the paper as he went back through the Cathedral, wondering again over what he had seen....

But the common-room was empty when he got to it, and presently he spread the paper before him on the table and leaned over it to see what the excitement was about.  There was no doubt as to what the news was—­there were headlines occupying nearly a third of a column; but it appeared to him unimportant as general news:  he had never heard of the people before.  It seemed that a wealthy peer who lived in the North of England, who had only recently been married for the second time, had been killed in a motor smash together with his eldest son.  The chauffeur had escaped with a fractured thigh.  The peer’s name was Lord Talgarth.

CHAPTER VII

(I)

On the morning of the twenty-fourth a curious little incident happened—­I dug the facts out of the police news—­in a small public-house on the outskirts of South London.  Obviously it is no more than the sheerest coincidence.  Four men were drinking a friendly glass of beer together on their way back to work from breakfast.  Their ecclesiastical zeal seems to have been peculiarly strong, for they distinctly stated that they were celebrating Christmas on that date, and I deduce from that statement that beer-drinking was comparatively infrequent with them.

However, as they were about to part, there entered to them a fifth, travel-stained and tired, who sat down and demanded some stronger form of stimulant.  The new-comer was known to these four, for his name was given, and his domicile was mentioned as Hackney Wick.  He was a small man, very active and very silent and rather pale; and he seems to have had something of a mysterious reputation even among his friends and to be considered a dangerous man to cross.

He made no mystery, however, as to where he had come from, nor whither he was going.  He had come from Kent, he said, and humorously added that he had been hop-picking, and was going to join his wife and the family circle for the festival of Christmas.  He remarked that his wife had written to him to say she had lodgers.

The four men naturally stayed a little to hear all this news and to celebrate Christmas once more, but they presently were forced to tear themselves away.  It was as the first man was leaving (his foreman appears to have been of a tyrannical disposition) that the little incident happened.