"Seen a bit of time go over its head, that has," said he, as he struck a match and lit his pipe. "That'll be the bell-tower over there to the left, won't it, the round thing with the cement pavement all round it?"
"Yes. Would you like to go in and examine it? There's plenty of time."
"Not me. I want my supper and a good night's rest first. Will this be the road where you saw that thing last night, Mr. Overton?"
"No. It is on the other side of the graveyard—over there, where you see that row of trees in the distance. It runs parallel with this one. I couldn't have come over from Willowby Old Church by this road, you know. It takes another sharp turn presently, then another again, and goes off in a totally different direction. I remember hearing an American gentleman who was here last summer saying that he guessed it must have been paced off by an Early Briton who'd just risen from sitting down on a nest of bees and was hunting around for a drug store."
"Hallo!" interrupted Cleek, "this is the front of the Hurdons' cottage, I see. They do keep it tidy and no mistake. And the one adjoining it is where the child disappeared, eh?"
"Yes. Would you care to go in and have a look at it? I haven't the key, of course, but I could borrow Mrs. Hurdon's. They both have the one kind of lock, so I dare say hers would do. Shall I ask?"
"No, thanks. That'll do for to-morrow—when the magnifying glass and the other things arrive. Let's move on. I'm a bit tired and anxious to get to our rooms. I can tell from the way my mate drags his feet that he's about done up, too."
"He is an uncommunicative beggar, and no mistake!" declared Overton, with a laugh. "Hasn't spoken a blessed syllable the whole way. I should say an oyster was about as sociable a companion for you as he."
"Oh, Jim's all right when you know him. Not much on the talk, I'll allow; but deaf folks never is. I like him because he never worries me none. Hallo! who's this Johnnie, I wonder? He looks a bit excited."
By this time they had negotiated the farther turning in the road and had come in sight of a gate and a man standing before it—someone whom the clustering lilac bushes completely screened from view.