CHAPTER VI. BY MISADVENTURE

Old Simpson Harker, who sat near the librarian's table, his hands folded on the crook of his stout walking stick, glanced out of a pair of unusually shrewd and bright eyes at Bryce as he crossed the room and approached the pair of gossipers.

"I think the doctor was there when that book you're speaking of was found," he remarked. "So I understood from Mitchington."

"Yes, I was there," said Bryce, who was not unwilling to join in the talk. He turned to Campany. "What makes you think there's a clue—in that?" he asked.

"Why this," answered the librarian. "Here's a man in possession of an old history of Barthorpe. Barthorpe is a small market-town in the Midlands—Leicestershire, I believe, of no particular importance that I know of, but doubtless with a story of its own. Why should any one but a Barthorpe man, past or present, be interested in that story so far as to carry an old account of it with him? Therefore, I conclude this stranger was a Barthorpe man. And it's at Barthorpe that I should make inquiries about him."

Simpson Harker made no remark, and Bryce remembered what Mr. Dellingham had said when the book was found.

"Oh, I don't know!" he replied carelessly. "I don't see that that follows. I saw the book—a curious old binding and queer old copper-plates. The man may have picked it up for that reason—I've bought old books myself for less."

"All the same," retorted Campany, "I should make inquiry at Barthorpe. You've got to go on probabilities. The probabilities in this case are that the man was interested in the book because it dealt with his own tow