“Now, that presents an interesting problem for Mr. Robbins, doesn’t it?” the inspector said as we returned to the motor. “I wonder if he’s planning to go out to Australia to seek out the last jury member.”

“Hardly on the twelfth day,” I said. “He wouldn’t even have time to leave England by then.”

“Then what’s he going to do on the twelfth day?” my grandfather said. “I rather think he’s the type who’d want a big finale.”

None of us had an answer to that one.

We left the city of Exeter behind and rolling countryside stretched ahead of us, with the snowcapped tors as a backdrop. “So the big question is, who has been hiding him?”

“It might be worth checking with Wild Sal again,” I said. “She sort of threatened me this morning. Nobody goes near the place she lives up on the moors, do they?”

“My lads were there to apprehend her,” the inspector said. “Hardly more than a sheep byre—stone walls, dirt floor and not enough room to swing a cat. Nowhere to hide him there.”

“But if they’d seen you coming, there are plenty of places to hide up on the moor until you’d gone, aren’t there?” I suggested.

“What exactly do you know about this Robbins?” Granddad asked. “Used to have a music hall turn, didn’t he?”

“He did. In fact, he was quite popular at one time. I gather it was a sort of magic act with his wife, sleight-of-hand stuff, but the difference was that it was a type of comedy act too and they played various characters. His most famous one was apparently an old colonel, trying to impress a coquettish young girl, played by his wife.”

“You know, I think I saw him once,” Granddad said excitedly. “At the Hammersmith Empire. The old colonel and the young girl. That rings a bell. They were quite good. Clever and funny too. What were they called?” He sucked through his teeth, thinking.

“I believe it was Robbie and someone.”

“‘Robbie and Trixie, Tricks and Chuckles,’ that was it,” Granddad said. “I did see them. The old colonel and the young girl. He was trying to impress her, producing flowers out of her hat, money out of her ear. So did you say that his wife killed herself?”

“Right after he was convicted,” the inspector said. “Left a note. Said she couldn’t handle the shame of it or go on living without him. So she drowned herself near Beachy Head. Walked out into the sea, and you know what the currents are like around that headland. The body was never found.”