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 while he was there! In that, in my opinion, is the secret of his murder."

"Well, keep us posted," said the inspector.

Wedgwood promised and went off. He bought several newspapers before getting into the train; each contained the prospectus of the Mortover Main Colliery Company, Limited. Wedgwood read it through more carefully and had soon got the hang of it. Mining experts had discovered the presence of a highly valuable seam of coal on the freehold estate of Philip Mortover, Esquire, of Mortover Grange; the company was being formed to acquire that gentleman's rights and to work the coal—that was the whole thing in a nutshell. And, of course, Philip Mortover as vendor was to have an enormous price for what he was selling.

Wedgwood reached Netherwell early in the afternoon, and making his way to what was recommended to him by the station-master as the best hotel in the place, found himself in a sleepy little market-town of grey-walled, stone-roofed houses, set amidst dark and black hills: at that time of the year an unfriendly and almost forbidding country. But the hotel, an old-world house, was warm and comfortable, and the folk who kept it were evidently prodigal of coal, and when Wedgwood had warmed himself at an immense fire in an old-fashioned par-