Before he had finished the question, the answer sprang up in his mind. Donnelly had not found Ives in the cottage, so he was going to look for him down there. Suppose he found him?
“No!” thought Ross. “It’s—impossible. I—I’m losing my nerve.”
To tell the truth, he was badly shaken. He was ready to credit Donnelly with superhuman powers, to believe that he could see things invisible to other persons, that he could, simply by looking out of the window, trace the whole course of a crime.
“I’ve got to do something,” he thought. “Now is my chance. I can give him the slip now.”
But he was a good seven or eight miles from “Day’s End.” Well, why couldn’t he hurry down, jump into the taxi, and order the driver to set off at once? Long before Donnelly could find any way of escape from this desolate region, he could get back to the house and warn Amy. And, in doing so, he would certainly antagonize Donnelly, and confirm any suspicions he might already have.
“No,” he thought. “He’s not sure about Amy now. And I don’t believe he’s got anything against me. I can’t afford to run away. He hasn’t found anything yet that definitely connects Amy with the—the case.”
But when he did?
Donnelly had reached the bottom of the slope now, and was sauntering along the edge of the pond, hands in his pockets. He had in nowise the air of a sleuth hot upon a scent, but to Ross his leisurely progress suggested an alarming confidence. He knew—what didn’t he know? And Ross, the guilty one, knew nothing at all. In angry desperation, he turned away from the window.
“All right!” he said, aloud. “I’ll have a look for clews myself!”
And, without the slightest difficulty, he found all the clews he wanted.