At the back-door of the farm Mrs. Price had already joined the one onlooker of this scene who had not ventured down into the yard—an elegant onlooker, in a semi-evening toilette of mauve georgette, half-hidden beneath a creamy wrap.
Muriel, excited and amused, hardly seemed to realize the gravity of what she had been watching.
"Oh, Dick, have you got the fire out, nearly?" she chattered. "I should have come down to see you all near to, only I didn't want to ruin these shoes. I'd just dashed out as I was! Thrilling, isn't it? What is this about paraffin?" she added, quickly. "Did they say you found paraffin thrown about? Oh! I wonder"—more excitedly—"I wonder if it was that man I saw with the can?"
Sharply her cousin rapped out, "What man?'
"That nice-looking sailor with the blue eyes who said I spoke German so well——"
Dick Holiday gave a very quick movement. "The German? You saw him with a can of paraffin? What's this, Muriel? When?"
"Today—at lunch-time, I think it was," returned Muriel, while we all listened eagerly. "I was coming back from taking a letter to the post-box, and I met that German I was talking to the other day, close to the little well in the field——"
"Yes?"
"Well, that's all; he just had a tin of paraffin showing out of his jacket pocket, and I asked him, in German, what he was going to do with it."
"What did he say?" asked Dick Holiday, more than curtly.