Stoner, who dealt with all the Mallalieu & Cotherstone correspondence, knew that during his five and a half years' clerkship, he had never addressed a single letter to any one at Wilchester, never received a single letter bearing the Wilchester post-mark.

Wilchester was four hundred miles away, far off in the south; ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in Highmarket had never heard the name of Wilchester.

But Stoner had--quite apart from the history books, and the geography books, and map of England.

Stoner himself was a Darlington man.

He had a close friend, a bosom friend, at Darlington, named Myler--David Myler.