She shuddered as she looked at it; shuddered and turned faint, but with an heroic effort she conquered this failing of her bodily powers. She relocked the drawer, and wrapped her son’s mutilated coat in some brown paper she found lying on the table. She carried this parcel to her own room, after carefully brushing out the grate in Henderson’s; and wrapping the burnt fragments it contained in paper, she carried these away also.
When she reached her bedroom she concealed these two parcels, and then rang for her housemaid. She bade this maid make up and light the fire, for, as it was summer time, there were no coals in the room.
“I feel so chilly, Jane,” she said; “I must have got cold, and will be all the better for a fire.”
The fire was soon lit, and when it had burnt up and the servant was gone, Mrs. Henderson at once commenced to cut her son’s coat to pieces, and burnt it gradually. She was afraid to make a smell of burning by doing it altogether. But every shred of it was at last consumed, and Mrs. Henderson watched it disappear with a miserable heart.
In the meanwhile Henderson had once more strolled toward the stables, and there, as he expected to find, was Jack Reid. The groom looked up and nodded when he saw his master approaching.
“I wanted a word wi’ ye, sir,” he said; “I’ve been hanging about, and all the country-side’s up about the murder.”
“I know nothing about it,” said Henderson, doggedly, “but—you were right, Jack, about the letter; the policeman who served the summons about the inquest said something about you having taken one.”
“I knew I was right; folks saw me gi’ it to her, and there’s a great talk over it. And the police ha’ been examining where she was found all the day, and they say she must ha’ shot herself, or been shot, on the high ridge above the Dene. There’s blood there, and she must either ha’ fallen into the Dene or been thrown, as the branches are broke all the way down from the top to where she was found.”
Henderson’s face grew literally ghastly as he listened to these words, and his groom watched him with a certain grim humor in his expression.
“I never went near,” said Henderson, huskily.