of the invisible net that was being woven around the young baronet,
when a stranger ran up behind me calling my name.  He was a small,
slim, clean-shaven, prim-faced man, flaxen-haired & lean-jawed, between
thirty & forty years of age, dressed in a grey suit and wearing a
straw hat.  A tin box for botanical specimens hung over his shoulder
and he carried a green butterfly-net. It was Stapleton, the naturalist,
from Merripit House. Dr. Mortimer had pointed me out, as I passed his
surgery.
Stapleton proved friendly and expressed the hope that the new baronet
would not be put off by the legend of the fiend dog that had such a
fatal effect on the nerves of his uncle. Stapleton himself did not
believe the legend. Knowing from his friend Mortimer that Sir Charles
had a weak heart, he assumed that Sir Charles had simply died of fright
