"Damfino," he said. "That's the rub. There's no gate on this side of Killimaga."
"Killimaga?"
"A rich old Irishman built it and put a wall around it, too. We folks of Sihasset don't like that; it shuts off the view of the house and lawn. Lawn's what makes things purty. He wuz a queer old mug—wanted to shut hisself up."
"But how did she get out?" insisted the agent, coming back to the issue.
"Search me," offered the constable. He looked toward the top of the wall. "Clumb the fence, mebbe."
"With her dress looking as it does?"
"There's no other way. I dunno."
The agent was puzzled. "I want a closer inspection of that wall. We'll walk along this side."
Both agent and constable started off, keeping well behind the wild hedge along the wall so that they might not be seen from the bluff road.
The man lying in the grass was more puzzled than the agent. Why a book agent and a constable should be so anxious about a lady who was—well, just charming—but who had herself stepped out of nowhere to join a priest in his walk, was a problem for some study. He got up and walked to the wall. Then he laughed. Close examination showed him marks in the giant tree, the vertical cuts being cleverly covered by the bark, while the horizontal ones had creepers festooned over them. A door was well concealed. But the tree? It was large, yet there could not be room in it for more than one person, who would have to stand upright and in a most uncomfortable position. The man himself had been before it over an hour. How long had the lady been in the tree? He forgot his lost cigar in trying to figure the problem out.