“My dear young lady,” he announced solemnly, “a terrible thing has happened. You must prepare yourself for the worst. Your uncle has been shot through the head, apparently at some time during the night. The doctor is with him now, but—but he is quite dead.”
“Dead!” she repeated mechanically.
“All his papers are in a state of great disorder,” the clergyman concluded. “I am afraid—it is a terrible thing to say, but I am afraid there is no doubt that your uncle has been murdered.”
END OF BOOK TWO
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER I
The new tenant of the Great House, installed within twelve months of its dramatic vacancy, issued one evening through the small postern gate, set in the red brick wall which encircled his gardens, into the village street. This was his first appearance since he had taken up his residence in the neighbourhood, and he was consequently an object of absorbed interest to such few loiterers as were about. An elderly roadmender, who was making half-hearted assaults upon a broken piece of road with a pickax which seemed too heavy for him, looked up curiously and touched his hat. The postmistress, warned by a subordinate, hastened immediately to the entrance of her establishment as though to consult the church clock. Mr. Franks, the butcher at the corner of the street, hurried out on the pretext of giving some parting instructions to a boy who was just starting off on his bicycle with a special order for the Hall, and Mrs. Moles, who kept a small general shop and was reputed to know the genealogy, morals and predilections of every one within a dozen miles around, stared unabashed over the top of her curtains.
The first impressions of the newcomer, to be privately exchanged within the next hour or so, could scarcely fail to be favourable. Peter Johnson appeared to be a man a little under medium height, sturdy, clean-shaven, with bright, steady eyes, humorous mouth, brown, sun-dried complexion and hair inclined to greyness. He wore a tweed knickerbocker suit, a Homburg hat; he carried an ash stick, and his age might have been anything between forty and fifty.
No one was more interested in their new neighbour who was now engaged in making his leisurely way along the village street, than the three men in the bar parlour of the Ballaston Arms. Conscious of their own invisibility behind the muslin curtains, they yielded without restraint to their curiosity.