The old man was extremely deaf, and, after half an hour of interrogation, his story did not amount to much. On a night in October, which he thought might be the night of the murder, he had been sitting by his peat fire when-about midnight, as he guessed-a tall man had loomed up out of the darkness. He spoke like a Southerner, and said he had got lost on the moor. Old Groot had come to his door and pointed out the track down towards Riddlesdale. The stranger had then vanished, leaving a shilling in his hand. He could not describe the stranger's dress more particularly than that he wore a soft hat and an overcoat, and, he thought, leggings. He was pretty near sure it was the night of the murder, because afterwards he had turned it over in his mind and made out that it might have been one of yon folk at the Lodge-possibly the Duke. He had only arrived at this result by a slow process of thought, and had not "come forward," not knowing whom or where to come to.

With this the inquirers had to be content, and presenting Groot with half a crown, they emerged upon the moor at something after five o'clock.

"Bunter," said Lord Peter through the dusk, "I am abso-bally-lutely positive that the answer to all this business is at Grider's Hole."

"Very possibly, my lord."

Lord Peter extended his finger in a southeasterly direction. "That is Grider's Hole," he said. "Let's go."

"Very good, my lord."

So, like two Cockney innocents, Lord Peter and Bunter set forth at a brisk pace down the narrow moor-track towards Grider's Hole, with never a glance behind them for the great white menace rolling silently down through the November dusk from the wide loneliness of Whemmeling Fell.

"Bunter!"

"Here, my lord!"

The voice was close at his ear.

"Thank God! I thought you'd disappeared for good. I say, we ought to have known."

"Yes, my lord."

It had come on them from behind, in a single stride, thick, cold, choking-blotting each from the other, though they were only a yard or two apart.

"I'm a fool, Bunter," said Lord Peter.

"Not at all, my lord."

"Don't move; go on speaking."

"Yes, my lord."

Peter groped to the right and clutched the other's sleeve.

"Ah! Now what are we to do?"

"I couldn't say, my lord, having no experience. Has the-er-phenomenon any habits, my lord?"

"No regular habits, I believe. Sometimes it moves. Other times it stays in one place for days. We can wait all night, and see if it lifts at daybreak."

"Yes, my lord. It is unhappily somewhat damp."

"Somewhat-as you say," agreed his lordship, with a short laugh.

Bunter sneezed, and begged pardon politely.

"If we go on going south-east," said his lordship, "we shall get to Grider's Hole all right, and they'll jolly well have to put us up for the night-or give us an escort. I've got my torch in my pocket, and we can go by compass-oh, hell!"

"My lord?"

"I've got the wrong stick. This beastly ash! No compass, Bunter-we're done in."

"Couldn't we keep on going downhill, my lord?"

Lord Peter hesitated. Recollections of what he had heard and read surged up in his mind to tell him that uphill or downhill seems much the same thing in a fog. But man walks in a vain shadow. It is hard to believe that one is really helpless. The cold was icy.

"We might try," he said weakly.

"I have heard it said, my lord, that in a fog one always walked round in a circle," said Mr. Bunter, seized with a tardy diffidence.

"Not on a slope, surely," said Lord Peter, beginning to feel bold out of sheer contrariness.

Bunter, being out of his element, had, for once, no good counsel to offer.

"Well, we can't be much worse off than we are," said Lord Peter. "We'll try it, and keep on shouting."

He grasped Bunter's hand, and they strode gingerly forward into the thick coldness of the fog.

How long that nightmare lasted neither could have said. The world might have died about them. Their own shouts terrified them; when they stopped shouting the dead silence was more terrifying still. They stumbled over tufts of thick heather. It was amazing how, deprived of sight, they exaggerated the inequalities of the ground. It was with very little confidence that they could distinguish uphill from downhill. They were shrammed through with cold, yet the sweat was running from their faces with strain and terror.

Suddenly-from directly before them as it seemed, and only a few yards away-there rose a long, horrible shriek-and another-and another.

"My God! What's that?"

"It's a horse, my lord."

"Of course." They remembered having heard horses scream like that. There had been a burning stable near Poperinghe-

"Poor devil," said Peter. He started off impulsively in the direction of the sound, dropping Bunter's hand.

"Come back, my lord," cried the man in a sudden agony. And then, with a frightened burst of enlightenment: "For God's sake stop, my lord-the bog!"

A sharp shout in the utter blackness.

"Keep away there-don't move-it's got me!"

And a dreadful sucking noise.

"I tripped right into it," said Wimsey's voice steadily, out of the blackness. "One sinks very fast. You'd better not come near, or you'll go too. We'll yell a bit. I don't think we can be very far from Grider's Hole."

"If your lordship will keep shouting," returned Mr. Bunter, "I think-I can-get to you," he panted, untying with his teeth the hard knot of a coil of string.

"Oy!" cried Lord Peter obediently. "Help! Oy! Oy!"

Mr. Bunter groped towards the voice, feeling cautiously before him with his walking-stick.

"Wish you'd keep away, Bunter," said Lord Peter peevishly. "Where's the sense of both of us-?" He squelched and floundered again.

"Don't do that, my lord," cried the man entreatingly. "You'll sink farther in."

"I'm up to my thighs now," said Lord Peter.

"I'm coming," said Bunter. "Go on shouting. Ah, here's where it gets soggy."

He felt the ground carefully, selected a tussocky bit which seemed reasonably firm, and drove his stick well into it.

"Oy! Hi! Help!" said Lord Peter, shouting lustily.

Mr. Bunter tied one end of the string to the walking-stick, belted his Burberry tightly about him, and, laying himself cautiously down upon his belly, advanced clue in hand, like a very Gothic Theseus of a late and degenerate school.

The bog heaved horribly as he crawled over it, and slimy water squelched up into his face. He felt with his hands for tussocks of grass, and got support from them when he could.

"Call out again, my lord!"

"Here!" The voice was fainter and came from the right. Bunter had lost his line a little, hunting for tussocks.

"I daren't come faster," he explained. He felt as though he had been crawling for years.

"Get out while there's time," said Peter. "I'm up to my waist. Lord! this is rather a beastly way to peg out."

"You won't peg out," grunted Bunter. His voice was suddenly quite close. "Your hands now."

For a few agonising minutes two pairs of hands groped over the invisible slime. Then: "Keep yours still," said Bunter. He made a slow, circling movement. It was hard work keeping his face out of the mud. His hands slithered over the slobbery surface-and suddenly closed on an arm.

"Thank God!" said Bunter. "Hang on here, my lord."

He felt forward. The arms were perilously close to the sucking mud. The hands crawled clingingly up his arms and rested on his shoulders. He grasped Wimsey beneath the armpits and heaved. The exertion drove his own knees deep into the bog. He straightened himself hurriedly. Without using his knees he could get no purchase, but to use them meant certain death. They could only hang on desperately till help came-or till the strain became too great. He could not even shout; it was almost more than he could do to keep his mouth free of water. The dragging strain on his shoulders was intolerable; the mere effort to breathe meant an agonising crick in the neck.