He did not wait to observe the effect on Mary of this baldly delivered piece of news, but hurried off towards the path that wound down through the shrubbery to the bridge across the stream.
By the time he arrived on the scene of the accident, Dr Hinchcliffe, a bloodless-looking man some years older than his partner, Maurice Chester, had risen from his knees beside Wally's body, and had stated that there was nothing to be done, and that Wally had probably been killed instantaneously. Samuel Jones, still in his pinkstriped shirt sleeves, was trying to explain to him, firstly how he himself came to be present, and secondly what he had been doing at the moment when the shot was heard.
Harold White was standing beside Wally's body listening, with a sardonic expression on his face, to his friend's volubility, and Janet was hovering in the background, alternately sniffing, and blowing her nose.
Dr Hinchcliffe gave the impression of a man who disliked being called out on a Sunday afternoon, and, further, found such violent forms of death distasteful. He cut short Jones's explanations by saying testily: "Yes, yes, my dear sir, but all that is a matter for the police, not for me!" He turned a cold grey eye upon White, and added: "The police must be notified immediately. If you have not already done so, I will."
"I notified them as soon as I'd got hold of you," replied White. He caught sight of Hugh, and stared at him for a moment. "What do you want?" he demanded. "Oh! Dering, isn't it?"
"Yes, I'm Hugh Dering. I met Miss Fanshawe a few minutes ago, and, frankly, what she told me sounded so incredible that I came along to find out just what has been happening." His gaze flickered to Wally's body. "Apparently," he said, with the lightness of tone a man assumes when confronted by the macabre, "her story was correct."
"Wally Carter's been shot," said White unnecessarily.
"So I see. Do you happen to know how, or by whom?"
"No, I don't. And since you seem to like questions, where, may I ask, did you spring from?"
"I," said Hugh, quite pleasantly, but with a certain hardening of the jaw, "sprang out of the drawing-room at Palings."