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“But look here, my dear Weatherhead,” argued Travers (whether in good faith or not I never could quite make out), “don’t you see what a tremendously important link it is? Here’s a dog who (as I understand the facts) had a silver collar, with his name engraved on it, round his neck at the time he was lost. Here’s that identical collar turning up soon afterward round the neck of a totally different dog! We must follow this up; we must get at the bottom of it somehow! With a clue like this, we’re sure to find out either the dog himself, or what’s become of him! Just try to recollect exactly what happened, there’s a good fellow. This is just the sort of thing I like!”

It was the sort of thing I did not enjoy at all. “You must excuse me to-night, Travers,” I said, uncomfortably; “you see, just now it’s rather a sore subject for me, and I’m not feeling very well!” I was grateful just then for a reassuring glance of pity and confidence from Lilian’s sweet eyes, which revived my drooping spirits for the moment.

“Yes, we’ll go into it to-morrow, Travers,” said the colonel; “and then–hullo, why, there’s that confounded Frenchman again!”

It was indeed; he came prancing back delicately, with a malicious enjoyment on his wrinkled face. “Once more I return to apologise,” he said. “My poodle ‘as permit ‘imself ze grave indiscretion to make a very big ‘ole at ze bottom of ze garden!”

I assured him that it was of no consequence. “Perhaps,” he replied, looking steadily at me through his keen, half-shut eyes, “you vill not say zat ven you regard ze ‘ole. And you others, I spik to you: sometimes von loses a somzing vich is qvite near all ze time. It is ver’ droll, eh? my vord, ha, ha, ha!” And he ambled off, with an aggressively fiendish laugh that chilled my blood.

“What the deuce did he mean by that, eh?” said the colonel, blankly.

“Don’t know,” said Travers; “suppose we go and inspect the hole?”

But before that I had contrived to draw near it myself, in deadly fear lest the Frenchman’s last words had contained some innuendo which I had not understood.

It was light enough still for me to see something, at the unexpected horror of which I very nearly fainted.

That thrice accursed poodle which I had been insane enough to attempt to foist upon the colonel must, it seems, have buried his supper the night before very near the spot in which I had laid Bingo, and in his attempts to exhume his bone had brought the remains of my victim to the surface!

There the corpse lay, on the very top of the excavations. Time had not, of course, improved its appearance, which was ghastly in the extreme, but still plainly recognisable by the eye of affection.

“It’s a very ordinary hole,” I gasped, putting myself before it and trying to turn them back. “Nothing in it–nothing at all!”

“Except one Algernon Weatherhead, Esq., eh?” whispered Travers, jocosely, in my ear.

“No; but,” persisted the colonel, advancing, “look here! Has the dog damaged any of your shrubs?”

“No, no!” I cried, piteously; “quite the reverse. Let’s all go indoors now; it’s getting so cold!”

“See, there is a shrub or something uprooted,” said the colonel, still coming nearer that fatal hole. “Why, hullo, look there! What’s that?”

Lilian, who was by his side, gave a slight scream. “Uncle,” she cried, “it looks like–like Bingo!”

The colonel turned suddenly upon me. “Do you hear?” he demanded, in a choked voice. “You hear what she says? Can’t you speak out? Is that our Bingo?”

I gave it up at last; I only longed to be allowed to crawl away under something! “Yes,” I said in a dull whisper, as I sat down heavily on a garden seat, “yes . . . that’s Bingo . . . misfortune . . . shoot him . . . quite an accident!”