"You saw nobody about close by--nor in the neighbourhood--no strangers on the road ?" I was ready for that question.

Ever since finding the body, I had been wondering what I should say when authority, either in the shape of a coroner or a policeman, asked me about my own adventures that night.

To be sure, I had seen a stranger, and I had observed that he had lost a couple of fingers, the first and second, of his right hand; and it was certainly a queer thing that he should be in that immediate neighbourhood about the time when this unfortunate man met his death.

But it had been borne in on my mind pretty strongly that the man I had seen looking at his map was some gentleman-tourist who was walking the district, and had as like as not been tramping it over Plodden Field and that historic corner of the country, and had become benighted ere he could reach wherever his headquarters were.

And I was not going to bring suspicion on what was in all probability an innocent stranger, so I answered Chisholm's question as I meant to answer any similar one--unless, indeed, I had reason to alter my mind.
"I saw nobody and heard nothing--about here," said I."It's not likely there'd be strangers in this spot at midnight." "For that matter, the poor fellow is a stranger himself," said he, once more turning his lamp on the dead face.