Old Adah had not at that time suspected the man of killing his wife, but only of beating her brutally, as he had been in the habit of doing.
Never until she heard of the body that had been found did she think of murder.
Then, at the first opportunity, she had told her story and given her opinion to the convalescent master of the Cliffs, who, in her judgment, was entitled to the first information.
Tudor Hereward’s “wish” was certainly “father to the thought” when he gave so ready a credence to old Adah’s story, and called his two oldest and most faithful friends into counsel as to the best means of ascertaining the truth.
And they, without committing themselves to any positive opinion—for, in such a case, they could have no just grounds for entertaining one—had pledged their words to leave “no stone unturned” for discovering the truth.
To do so, they knew that they must search for clews for both the missing women.
And they searched long, thoroughly, but fruitlessly, until near the end of May.
They ascertained from the accounts of the ticket agent at Frosthill that two passengers only had bought tickets for the midnight express on that fatal 21st of March. One was a ruffianly young man, he—the agent—was sure, but the other he could not describe at all.
Now who were those two passengers?
The uttermost efforts of our amateur detectives failed to discover. They could find no one in the village or in the surrounding country who had taken the train that night.