"As I thought," he said, blowing out the candle. "Someone has been on that wall and thrown the stone from there. I saw the marks of feet on the other side. The man who delivered the letter jumped the ditch and made off across the fields."
"You don't think it is Hilliston?" said Claude doubtfully.
"No; but I think it is an emissary of Hilliston. Perhaps Denis Bantry."
"Tait!" said Larcher, after a pause, "from Hilliston's visit to Paynton, from the way in which Paynton persistently secludes himself from the world; and from the knowledge we possess that the information for Linton's book came out of that cottage, I have come to a conclusion."
"What is that?"
"I believe that Ferdinand Paynton is none other than Mark Jeringham, who killed my father."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PREPARING THE GROUND.