"Where is Mrs. Pendean's house?" he asked.
"In Station Cottages, just before you come to the prison woods, sir."
"Run over, then, and say I'll call in half an hour."
"There!" Will grinned. "I told 'em you'd never keep out of it!"
He was gone and Brendon read the letter again, studied its neat caligraphy, and observed that a tear had blotted the middle of the sheet. Once more he said "damn" to himself, dropped his fishing basket and rod, turned up the collar of his mackintosh, and walked to the police station, where he heard a little of the matter in hand from a constable and then asked for permission to use the telephone. In five minutes he was speaking to his own chief at Scotland Yard, and the familiar cockney voice of Inspector Harrison came over the two hundred odd miles that separated the metropolis of convicts from the metropolis of the world.
"Man apparently murdered here, inspector. Chap who is thought to have done it disappeared. Widow wants me to take up case. I'm unwilling to do so; but it looks like duty." So spoke Brendon.
"Right. If it looks like duty, do it. Let me hear again to-night. Halfyard, chief at Princetown, is an old friend of mine. Very good man. Good-bye."
Mark then learned that Inspector Halfyard was already at Foggintor.
"I'm on this," said Mark to the constable. "I'll come in again. Tell the inspector to expect me at noon for all details. I'm going to see Mrs. Pendean now."
The policeman saluted. He knew Brendon very well by sight.