One morning Joan ran downstairs, pale, and trembling from head to foot, moaning and sobbing as she ran:
“Roonah!—my poor old Roonah!—I knew it—I knew it!”
Captain Jack happened to meet her at the foot of the stairs. He pressed her with questions, but the girl was unable to speak. She merely pointed mutely to the floor above. The young man, genuinely alarmed, ran quickly upstairs; he threw open the door leading to Roonah’s room, and there, to his horror, he saw the unfortunate woman lying across the small camp-bedstead, with a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, and her throat cut.
The sight was horrible.
Poor Roonah was obviously dead.
Without losing his presence of mind, Captain Jack quietly shut the door again, after urgently begging Joan to compose herself, and to try to keep up, at any rate until the local doctor could be sent for and the terrible news gently broken to Lady d’Alboukirk.
The doctor, hastily summoned, arrived some twenty minutes later. He could but confirm Joan’s and Captain Jack’s fears. Roonah was indeed dead—in fact, she had been dead some hours.
2
From the very first, mind you, the public took a more than usually keen interest in this mysterious occurrence. The evening papers on the very day of the murder were ablaze with flaming headlines such as:
THE TRAGEDY AT FORDWYCH CASTLE
MYSTERIOUS MURDER OF AN IMPORTANT WITNESS
GRAVE CHARGES AGAINST PERSONS IN
HIGH LIFE