ment of news of him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method. It's not a bad one—it's only rich young ladies who can follow it. So I've already put things in train. Handbills and posters, of course—and the town-crier. I suggested to her that by tonight, or tomorrow morning, there might be news of Mr. Horbury without doing all that. No good! Miss Fosdyke—she can tell you a lot inside a minute—informed me that since she was seventeen she had only had one motto in life. It's—do it now!"
"Good!" laughed the Earl. "But—where are you going to begin?"
"That's the difficulty," agreed Polke. "A gentleman walks out of his back garden into the dusk—and he's never seen again. I don't know. We must wait and see if anybody comes forward to say that he, she, or it saw Mr. Horbury after he left his house on Saturday night. That's all."
"Somebody must have seen him," said the Earl.
"Well, you'd think so, my lord," replied Polke, "but he could get away from the back of his orchard into the open country without being seen. The geographical position of our town's a bit curious, so your lordship knows. Here we are on a ridge. Horbury's garden and orchard run down to the foot of that ridge. At that foot is the river. There's a foot-bridge over the river, immediately opposite his orchard gate. He could cross that foot-bridge, and be in the wood on the other side in two minutes from leaving his house. That wood extends for a good mile into the country. Oh, yes! he could get away without being seen, and once in that country, why,
