"Here, take it and go to hell!" he said, throwing it to Cicero.
"Mariner, fata obstant," rolled Gramp in his deep voice.
Then he strode haughtily away. He looked round as he turned the corner of the house, and saw Joe clutching his iron-gray locks, still at the kitchen door.
So with a guinea in his pocket and a certain amount of knowledge which he hoped would bring him many more, Cicero departed, considerable uplifted. At the village grocery he bought bread, meat and a bottle of whisky, then he proceeded to shake the dust of Heathton off his feet. As he stepped out on to the moor he recalled the Latin words he had used, and he shuddered.
"Why did I say that?" he murmured. "The words came into my head somehow. Just when Joe was talking of my employer, too! Who is my employer? What has he to do with all this? I'm all in the dark! So Dr. Warrender's gone, and the Quiet Gentleman too. It must have been Dr. Warrender who helped to steal Marlow's body. The description tallies exactly--tall, fair beard and bald. I wonder if t'other chap was the Quiet Gentleman? And what on earth could they want with the body? Any way, the body's gone, and, as it's a millionaire corpse, I'll have some of its money or I'm a Dutchman!"
He stopped and placed his hand to his head.
"Bournemouth, Bournemouth!" he muttered. "Ah, that's it--the Soudan Hotel, Bournemouth!"
It was now the middle of the afternoon, and, as he plodded on, the moor glowed like a furnace. No vestige of shade was there beneath which to rest, not even a tree or a bush. Then, a short distance up the road, he espied a hut. It seemed to be in ruins. It was a shepherd's hut, no doubt. The grass roof was torn, the door was broken, though closed, and the mud walls were crumbling. Impatient of any obstacle, he shoved his back against it and burst it open. It had been fastened with a piece of rope. He fell in, headlong almost. But the gloom was grateful to him, though for the moment he could see but little.
When his eyes had become more accustomed to the half-light, the first object upon which they fell was a stiff human form stretched on the mud floor--a body with a handkerchief over the face. Yelling with terror, Cicero hurled himself out again.
"Marlow's body!" he gasped. "They've put it here!"