“I said, ‘That was a close call—too many people around here entirely. Let’s make it two less.’ We tiptoed out past the cottage to the main road and started back toward the lodge gates, walking along the grass beside the road in order not to make any noise. We were almost back to the gates when Miss Dunne stopped me.”
“Do you know what time it was, Mr. Phipps?”
“I am not sure of the time. I looked at my watch last when it began to get too dark to read—shortly before nine. We did not start for the cottage until a few minutes later, and it is my impression that it must have been between quarter to ten and ten. We had been walking very slowly, but even at that pace it should not take more than twenty minutes.”
“It was dark then?”
“Oh, yes; it had been quite dark for some time, though it was possible to distinguish the outline of objects. It was a very beautiful starlight night.”
“Quite so. What caused Miss Dunne to stop you?”
“She exclaimed suddenly, ‘Oh, good heavens, I haven’t got my lunch box! I must have left it in the bushes by the cottage.’ I said, ‘Perhaps you left it in the summerhouse,’ but she was quite sure that she hadn’t, as she remembered distinctly thinking just before we reached the cottage that it was a nuisance lugging it about. She was very much worried, as it had her initial stenciled on it in rather a distinctive way, and she was afraid that someone that she knew might possibly find it and recognize it, and that if they returned it, her parents might learn that she had been at Orchards that night.”
“Her parents were not aware of this expedition?”
“They were not, sir. They had both gone to New Hampshire to attend the funeral of Mr. Dunne’s mother.”
“Proceed, Mr. Phipps.”