CHAPTER I

For the life of him, Linthwaite could never think why he broke his homeward journey at Selport; he might have spent that, the last day of his holidays, on the piers and esplanades of Marshton-super-Mare in precisely the same fashion in which he had spent a fortnight, strolling here, lounging there, exchanging a trifle of gossip with various barmaids, wishing that he knew some of the pretty girls who passed him. It was not a very exciting way in which to spend two weeks of the year which are really his own, but Lint…