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Campbell and turned him off the golf-course.
    The list had reached this stage when the landlord of the hotel came in. Wimsey gave him the latest news of the Campbell affair, without, however, referring to the murder theory, and remarked that he thought of running along to Campbell’s house, to see if anything was known there about his movements.
    ‘I doot ye’ll no be hearin’ much there,’ said the landlord. ‘Mrs. Green that does his work is away home, but she knows juist naething at a’, except that when she arrived this mornin’ at 8 o’clock to put the place in order, he had went oot. And Mr. Ferguson that lives next to him was away to Glasgow by the first train.’
    ‘Ferguson?’ said Wimsey. ‘I think I’ve met him. Didn’t he do those mural paintings for the town hall at some place or other?’
    ‘Ay, he’s a verra gude penter. Ye’ll have seen him gaun aboot in his wee Austin. He has the stujo next to Campbell’s every summer.’
    ‘Is he married?’
    ‘Ay, but his wife’s away the noo, visitin’ wi’ friends in Edinbro’. I believe they du not get on so verra weel tegither.’
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    ‘Who, Ferguson and Campbell?’
    ‘No, no, Ferguson and Mrs. Ferguson. But the ither’s true, too. He and Campbell had an awfu’ quarrel aboot a bit of wall of Ferguson’s that Campbell knocked down wi’ his car.’
    ‘I wonder if there is a single person in the Stewartry that Campbell didn’t have a row with,’ thought Wimsey, and made an addition to his list:
John Ferguson — about 36 — about 5 foot 10 inches — grass-widower — landscape and figures — row about a wall.
    ‘By the way,’ he went on, ‘is Jock Graham anywhere about?’
    ‘Och, Jock — he’s away oot. He didna come hame last nicht at a’. He said he might be fishin’ up at Loch Trool.’
    ‘Oho!’ said Wimsey. ‘Up at Loch Trool, is he? How did he go?’
    ‘I couldna say. I think the factor had invitit him. He’ll ha’ spent last nicht in Newton-Stewart, maybe, and went up wi’ the factor in the mornin’. Or he will ha’ been fishin’ the loch all nicht.’
    ‘Will he, though?’ said Wimsey. This put a new complexion on the matter. An active man might have driven the body up to the Minnoch and walked back to Newton-Stewart in time to keep his appointment, if that appointment was not an early one. But it would have to be, of course, for a day’s fishing, and Jock Graham liked to work by night.
    ‘Will he be back tonight, Joe?’
    ‘I couldna say at all,’ said the landlord, scattering his hopes at a blow. ‘They’ll maybe tak’ twae nichts if the fishin’s gude.’
    ‘H’m!’ said Wimsey. ‘And very nice, too. Well, I’ll be getting on.’
    He paid his bill and came downstairs, accompanied by the landlord.
    ‘How’s Andy?’ he asked, casually.
    ‘Och, fine,’ said the other. ‘He’s in a great way, though, today. Some fellow’s pinched his push-bike. An’ the worst is, he had juist fitted it wi’ new tyres on both wheels.’
    Wimsey, with the thumb on the self-starter, paused, electrified.
    ‘How’s that?’
    ‘It’s his ain fault. He will go leavin’ it aboot the place. It’ll be some o’ these trampin’ fellows that sells carpets, verra like. There’s naebody in Gatehouse wad du sic a thing.’
    ‘When did he miss it?’
    ‘This mornin’, when he was aff to schule. It’s a gude thing it wasna the motor-bike he’s always after me to be givin’ him.’
    ‘I daresay somebody’s just borrowed it,’ said Wimsey.
    ‘That’s so. It may turn up yet. Well, gude day to your lordship.’
    Wimsey did not cross the bridge, but turned up the road to the railway station. He passed the turning on the left leading past Anwoth Old Kirk to the Creetown road, and followed the course of the Fleet till he came to a small lane on the right. At the end of this stood two little detached cottages, side by side, looking over a deep pool — in fact, the famous disputed pool in which Jock Graham had ducked the deceased Campbell.
    Under normal circumstances, Wimsey would have expected to find both doors confidingly