Then he swung round and glared at the cottage.
Out of the door came the figure of the peddler, and Martin, watching him, made a gesture of despair foreign to so powerful a man. The stranger’s eyes were preternaturally bright, and there was now no trace of the weary limp with which he had moved only a few hours ago. His head was erect, the bent shoulders were straight, his body was lithe and had taken on something of the springy contours of youth. Instinctively Derrick’s fingers tightened round the image, but it was at him rather than at his pocket that Blunt looked first.
“Excuse me, sir,” he began, “but when I was smoking inside just now I couldn’t help hearing you say that some one had been killed in your house. Might I ask who it was?”
The audacity of the thing made Derrick blink. He could not trust himself to glance at Martin but knew that the gardener’s eyes were fixed intently on the peddler’s face. There followed an instant of silence. Derrick realized that he was hunting big game, the biggest game of all, and it behooved him to keep his head.
“Will you tell me first why the matter is of any interest to you?”
Blunt’s lips formed an inscrutable smile, but his gaze was as blank as sea-water.
“It’s of no more interest than anything else of the same kind, but I’ve seen a bit of that sort of thing in the East, and it may be I can be of use in getting at the bottom of it, if that’s not been done yet.”
Derrick pondered. “This was not the usual kind of sudden death, and there were no clues left.”
The man nodded understandingly. “There ain’t so many deaths of what you would call the usual kind where I come from, either, but there is most always a clue of some sort if one knows where to look. That’s a matter of instinct. Can’t explain it, but I reckon I’ve got it.”
Over Martin’s features crept a shade of admiration. Derrick saw this, and it stiffened his resolution. The hunt was afoot now, one against two. Soon, he was convinced, it would be one against three, when Perkins joined in. She would prove perhaps the most elusive of all. Then his mind jumped back to the man in front of him.