"Why, he had no money for a bed, and he had to sleep in the open. I dare say he slept in the churchyard, and stole the body to sell it back again, it being well known as Miss Sophy's a Queen of Sheba for riches."
"All very well," said Slack the schoolmaster; "but if he took away Mr. Marlow's body, how did he put Dr. Warrender's in its place? And how could he without the key of the vault?"
"No," said the stonemason, "he couldn't get into that there vault without a key. I built him myself, me and my mates. If that fat man put the doctor there, he must have killed him. There's a hole in his heart as you could put your fist in. It's murder!" cried the man, dashing his hand on the table, "sacrilege and murder!"
It took a good many tankards of Mrs. Timber's strong ale to wash down the sinister word "murder." Every point of the matter was discussed, but no one could arrive at any decision. Slack voiced the general sentiment when he rose to go.
"We must wait for the police," said Slack.
But Alan Thorold was of the contrary opinion. He did not wish to wait for the police, or to have anything to do with the police. The difficulty was that he could not get the Rector to take this view, and the next morning Mr. Phelps sent the village constable for the inspector at Burchester, the big market town twenty miles away across the heath. Meantime, at an early hour, Alan presented himself at the Moat House. He broke the news as gently as he could. Both Sophy and Miss Vicky were horrified.
"To think of such things taking place in a Christian graveyard!" cried the little woman, wringing her hands. "Sacrilege and murder! It makes one believe in the existence of atheists and anarchists, and such-like dreadful people--it does, indeed!"
Contrary to Thorold's expectation, Sophy proved to be the more composed of the two. She neither wept nor fainted, but, very pale and very still, listened to all that he had to say. When he had finished, she had only one question to ask.
"Who did it?" she demanded in the calmest voice.
"I can't say--I don't know," stammered Alan, taken aback by her attitude generally. "We must find out. If your father had enemies--but even an enemy would have had no object in doing this."