“God knows!” was the butler’s ponderous pronouncement. “There’s strange things all around us, and what they may mean or where they may lead to we none of us can tell, at this present moment.”
“There is Mr. Johnson,” the grocer exclaimed, looking out over the muslin blinds, “and Inspector Cloutson with him. Look at ’em walking together, so confidential like.”
“I’d like to know what they’re saying,” Mr. Craske confessed. “Heads almost touching, as you might say. And did you see the Inspector turn around and look across towards the Hall?”
The two men halted outside the postern gate. Presently they separated, and, with a brief nod, Mr. Johnson entered his own domain, whilst Inspector Cloutson turned and made his way back towards the police station. The little company watched Mr. Johnson’s retiring figure as they had once watched his progress down the village street on the day of his first visit.
“In my opinion,” Rawson declared emphatically, “that’s the man who’s brought most of the mischief into this neighbourhood. I’m not one to wish any of my neighbours harm, but if the chap who broke into the Great House the other night had been of my way of thinking, he’d have given him one which would have kept him quiet for a bit longer than this.”
Mr. Johnson moved rather wearily to his favourite seat under the cedar tree, and sat there for several minutes in tired contemplation. He awoke from a fit of brooding to find Katherine Besant crossing the lawn towards him. She was bareheaded and it was obvious that she had been running. He rose to his feet..
“Come and sit down,” he begged.
“I can’t stop,” she answered. “I just came in. I wanted to have a word or two with you.”
He took her hands in his and looked at her steadily. She was a little flushed with her hurrying, but it struck him that her hair was more carefully arranged and that her linen frock, simple though its fashion, was becoming. The slight eagerness in her manner, communicated also to her expression, gave her an air of greater life and vivacity.