48055    Nowhere was there any trace of that lonely man whom I had seen on the same spot two nights before.

48056    As I walked back I was overtaken by Dr Mortimer driving in his dog-cart over a rough moorland track, which led from the outlying farmhouse of Foulmire.

48057    He has been very attentive to us, and hardly a day has passed that he has not called at the Hall to see how we were getting on.

48058    He insisted upon my climbing into his dog-cart and he gave me a lift homewards.

48059    I found him much troubled over the disappearance of his little spaniel.

48060    It had wandered on to the moor and had never come back.

48061    I gave him such consolation as I might, but I thought of the pony on the Grimpen Mire, and I do not fancy that he will see his little dog again.

48062    'By the way, Mortimer,' said I, as we jolted along the rough road, 'I suppose there are few people living within driving distance of this whom you do not know?'

48063    'Hardly any, I think.'

48064    'Can you, then, tell me the name of any woman whose initials are L.L.?'

48065    He thought for a few minutes.

48066    'No,' said he.

48067    'There are a few gipsies and labouring folk for whom I can't answer, but among the farmers or gentry there is no one whose initials are those.

48068    Wait a bit, though,' he added, after a pause.

48069    'There is Laura Lyons - her initials are L.L. - but she lives in Coombe Tracey.'