He stopped at hearing a shout outside the inn, and Elspeth had only time to glide away from the door and back to the tap-room, before the alert Inspector was at the front door. Just as he was about to open it, Mrs. Narby entered with a rush, hugging in her arms a bundle of cloth.
"I've got it--I've got it," she shouted.
"Got Herries?" asked Trent sharply.
"The fur coat," shouted Mrs. Narby, who was red and perspiring, and threw down the coat on the floor. "See--the fur coat--sables, as I'm a living woman. That cove es parsed out wore it."
"Sir Simon's coat," said Trent. "What do you think of this, doctor?"
"Much the same as I did before," replied Browne, tartly. "The assassin wore this coat to facilitate his escape, and flung it away to prevent discovery!"
[CHAPTER VI]
THE CARAVAN
All search for the escaped criminal proved vain. Herries had vanished as completely as though the earth had swallowed him up, after the fashion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Apparently, he had noted the departure of the amateur guards from their post below the window, and had seized the chance of getting away unobserved. Certainly he did not know the neighbourhood and, in that treacherous marsh-land, ran every chance of missing his way in the fogs, to fall into some water-hole. But it was better--at least the accused man appeared to have thought so--to risk even so stifling a death, rather than face the more judicial and merciful one of the gallows. Herries had chosen to fall into the hands of God, who knew his innocence, rather than into the hands of man, who judged him guilty before trial.
But be this as it may, it was certain that he was gone, for although every square inch of land in and around Desleigh village was minutely examined, nothing could be found likely to afford a clue to his hiding-place--perhaps to his grave. Many of the rustics returned to the "Marsh Inn" swearing that the man must be dead.