Allen shrugged his shoulders. "You have not imagination enough," he answered, copying his father; "it seems to me that you believe I am concerned in this matter."
"There ain't no need to incriminate yourself, sir."
"Spare me the warning. I am not going to do so. If you want to know the truth it is this: Miss Strode dreamed the other night that her father was lying dead in the Red Deeps. After vainly endeavouring to laugh her out of the belief that the dream was true, I went last night to the Red Deeps to convince her that all was well. I struck across the moor from the high-road, and catching my foot in some bramble bushes I twisted my ankle. I could not move, and my ankle grew very painful. For hours I waited, on the chance that some one might come past, but Chilvers Common being lonely, as you know, I could not get help. Therefore, shortly before midnight--though I can hardly tell the exact time, my watch having been stopped when I fell--I managed to crawl home. I arrived about two o'clock, and my mother was waiting up for me. She bathed my ankle and I went to bed."
"It couldn't have been very bad, sir, if you're down now," said Wasp bluntly, and only half satisfied with Allen's explanation.
"I forced myself to come down, as my father does not like any one to be absent from meals," was the reply.
"Right, Mr. Wasp--right," said Hill briskly, "you need not go on suspecting my son. He has nothing to do with this matter, the more so as he is engaged to Miss Strode."
"And I certainly should end all my chances of marrying Miss Strode by killing her father," said Allen sharply; "I think you take too much upon yourself, Wasp."
The policeman excused himself on the plea of zeal, but saw that he had gone too far, and offered an apology. "But it was your knowing the position of the body that made me doubtful," he said.
"That is the dream," said Mrs. Hill quietly; "but you can now tell us all that has taken place."
Hill looked astonished at his wife and a trifle annoyed. She was not usually given to putting herself forward--as he called it--but waited to take her tune from him. He would have interposed and asked the question himself, so as to recover the lead in his own house, but that Wasp, anxious to atone for his late error, replied at once, and addressed himself exclusively to Mrs. Hill.