‘He must have tripped over that chair.’ And everybody, including the doctor, stared at the offending piece of furniture with interest.
‘Come on, Abner,’ said George Malpas. ‘Good-night, Mr Hind.’
Mr Hind did not reply.
All through that night the snow fell slowly, incessantly. The soft, frozen sky drifted downward idly on the land, and George and Abner had to pick their way back to Wolfpits blindly in the small hours, guided through the plain by the presence of ghostly trees and in the Wolfpits valley by the snow-muffled tumult of the Folly Brook. The hills were desolate and savage. They lay dead, and the sky covered them. Wolfpits itself rose before the travellers’ eyes sudden and black through the falling snow. There was no light in any of the windows, for Mary had given them up long ago and gone to bed. Wood embers smouldered in the kitchen grate. George poked them into a blaze. They took off their snow-plastered coats and sat in front of the fire.
‘Well, this is a bloody fine thing!’ said George. ‘Old Bastard gone and me a murderer. I’ve looked for some queer things but never for this.’
‘I reckon it’s my fault,’ said Abner. ‘That’s bound to come out.’
‘That’s not going to help me,’ said George, with a laugh. ‘Not it! . . . It’s mother I’m thinking of. There’s no luck in our family. It’s no good talking about it. It’s my last fling, and I’d do it again for a pal. If it hadn’t happened to-night, it wouldn’t never have happened at all.’
Abner could say nothing. Even now he didn’t realise the seriousness of his friend’s position.
‘Just my blasted luck!’ said George. ‘Better turn in unless you want to get frozen.’
He went upstairs with his candle, and Abner followed.