When they came down again the little district inspector had just driven back from his examination of the cliffs. There were two shale banks along the verge, and until Leary got up again it would be impossible to say exactly where he had turned and fallen. He had told the doctor it was very dark, and he felt the gorse and wheeled, knowing he would find the gate leading to the path across to his house, but the gorse grew sixty yards from where they found him. They had looked everywhere, and the only thing they found was a small cork which smelt faintly of chloroform.
"We chloroformed a stray old cat last week," said Violet Weston absently, "at least Guinane did. He took it off somewhere to the cliffs, because I wouldn't have the poor thing done in the house."
"It's how striking a wire or a root as he turned to go in could have tumbled the man over the cliffs is what puzzles me," said Stafford. "The verge is several feet even from the path."
It was a matter of course that anyone coming late to Castle Freyne stayed to dinner. The meal was always elastic, with reserves of vast game pies and cold pheasants and other things, which Anne smilingly "slapped up" into hot dishes at a moment's notice.
Psyche sat next to Darby and talked of horses all the time, an eager, ill-informed but intelligent patter, which seemed to amuse him greatly.
To-morrow—no later—she would get a horse and practise jumping.
To-morrow, Darby said mildly, was a hunting day.
"But if I lean back and then forward," said Psyche excitedly, "I might not fall off. Gheena says I am to have her Redbird to begin on, because he's so very quiet and careful. And then I am to have a grey for my own riding."
This was Gheena's sop to her stepfather's ill-humour, as the grey was returned; it could thus be fed free of cost.
"And—oh!" Psyche started nervously.