I got back from Banff yesterday morning about nine, and Hilton was there with the car to meet me, as I had told him to be. I was anxious to know at once if everything was all right, but I found it hard 330 to put a question so personal before that impersonal-eyed Englishman. So I strove to give my interrogation an air of the casual by offhandedly inquiring: “How’s Rowdy, Hilton?”
“Dead, ma’am,” was his prompt reply.
This rather took my breath away.
“Do you mean to say that Rowdy is dead?” I insisted, noticing Poppsy’s color change as she listened.
“Killed, ma’am,” said the laconic Hilton.
“By whom?” I demanded.
“Mr. Murchison, ma’am,” was the answer.
“How?” I asked, feeling my vague dislike for that particular name sharpen up to something dangerously like hatred.
“He always comes up the drive a bit fast-like, ma’am. He hit the pup, and that was the end of him!”
“Does Dinkie know?” was my first question, after that.