By this time his chauffeur, who, after dropping him at Griff Towers, went on to Chichester, had returned with the two police officers, and they assisted him in a further search of the grounds. The trail of the fugitive was easy to follow: there were bloodstains across the gravel, broken plants in a circular flower-bed, the soft loam of which had received the impression of those small bare feet. In the vegetable field the trail was lost.
“The question is, who carried whom?” said Inspector Lyle, after Michael, in a few words, had told him all that he had learnt at the Towers. “It looks to me as if these people were killed in the house and their bodies carried away by Bhag. There’s no trace of blood in his room, which means no more than that in all probability he hasn’t been there since the killing,” said Inspector Lyle. “If we find the monkey we’ll solve this little mystery. Penne is the Head-Hunter, of course,” the Inspector went on. “I had a talk with him the other day, and there’s something fanatical about the man.”
“I am not so sure,” said Michael slowly, “that you’re right. Perhaps my ideas are just a little bizarre; but if Sir Gregory Penne is the actual murderer, I shall be a very surprised man. I admit,” he confessed, “that the absence of any footprints in Bhag’s quarters staggered me, and probably your theory is correct. There is nothing to be done but to keep the house under observation until I communicate with headquarters.”
At this moment the second detective, who had been searching the field to its farthermost boundary, came back to say that he had picked up the trail again near the postern gate, which was open. They hurried across the field and found proof of his discovery. There was a trail both inside and outside the gate. Near the postern was a big heap of leaves, which had been left by the gardener to rot, and on this they found the impression of a body, as though whoever was the carrier had put his burden down for a little while to rest. In the field beyond the gate, however, the trail was definitely lost.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MAN IN THE CAR
Life is largely made up of little things, but perspective in human affairs is not a gift common to youth. It had required a great effort on the part of Adele Leamington to ask a man to tea, but, once that effort was made, she had looked forward with a curious pleasure to the function.
At the moment Michael was speeding to London, she interviewed Jack Knebworth in his holy of holies.
“Certainly, my dear: you may take the afternoon off. I am not quite sure what the schedule was.”
He reached out his hand for the written time-table, but she supplied the information.
“You wanted some studio portraits of me—‘stills,’ ” she said.