Somebody was in the arbour, two people talking earnestly. One man stood up with his back to Chris, one hand gripping the outside ragged bark of the arbour frame with a peculiarly nervous, restless force. Chris could see the hand turned back distinctly. A piece of bark was being crumbled under a strong thumb. Such a thumb! Chris had seen nothing like it before.
It was as if at some time it had been smashed flat with a hammer, a broad, strong, cruel-looking thumb, flat and sinister-looking as the head of a snake. In the centre, like a pink pearl dropped in a filthy gutter, was one tiny, perfectly-formed nail.
The owner of the thumb stepped back the better to give way to a fit of hoarse laughter. He turned slightly aside and his eyes met those of Chris. They were small eyes set in a coarse, brutal face, the face of a criminal, Chris thought, if she were a judge of such matters. It came quite as a shock to see that the stranger was in clerical garb.
"I—I beg your pardon," Chris stammered. "But I—"
Henson emerged from the arbour. For once in a way he appeared confused, there was a flush on his face that told of annoyance ill suppressed.
"Please don't go away," he said. "Mr. Merritt will think that he has alarmed you. Miss Lee, this is my very good friend and co-worker in the field, the Reverend James Merritt."
"Is Mr. Merritt a friend of Lord Littimer's?" Chris asked, demurely.
"Littimer hates the cloth," Henson replied "Indeed, he has no sympathy whatever with my work. I met my good friend quite by accident in the village just now, and I brought him here for a chat. Mr. Merritt is taking a well-earned holiday."
Chris replied graciously that she didn't doubt it. She did not deem it necessary to add that she knew that one of Mr. Henson's mystic telegrams had been addressed to one James Merritt at an address in Moreton Wells, a town some fifteen miles away. That the scoundrel was up to no good she knew perfectly well.
"Your work must be very interesting," she said. "Have you been in the
Church long, Mr. Merritt?"