“You will—for once in your life—do as you are told,” said Sir Richard, and, lowering the unknown on to the bank, strode on down the track towards the clearing in the wood.
Here the moonlight bathed the ground in its cold silver light. Sir Richard had no doubt that he would find Beverley Brandon, either stunned, or recovering from the effects of the blow which had felled him, but as he stepped into the clearing he saw not only one man lying still on the ground, but a second on his knees beside him.
Sir Richard trod softly, and it was not until he had approached to within a few feet of the little group that the kneeling man heard his footsteps, and looked quickly over his shoulder. The moonlight drained the world of colour, but even allowing for this the face turned towards Sir Richard was unnaturally pallid. It was the face of a very young man, and perfectly strange to Sir Richard.
“Who are you?” The question was shot out in a hushed, rather scared voice. The young man started to his feet, and took up an instinctively defensive pose.
“I doubt whether my name will convey very much to you, but, for what it is worth, it is Wyndham. What has happened here?”
The boy seemed quite distracted, and replied in a shaken tone: “I don’t know. I found him here—like this. I—I think he’s dead!”
“Nonsense!” said Sir Richard, putting him out of his way, and in his turn kneeling beside Beverley’s inanimate body. There was a bruise on the livid brow, and when Sir Richard raised Beverley his head fell back in a way that told its own tale rather horribly. Sir Richard saw the tree-stump, and realized that Beverley’s head must have struck it. He laid his body down again, and said without the least vestige of emotion: “You are perfectly right. His neck is broken.”
The boy dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. “My God, who did it?—I—I didn’t, you know!”
“I don’t suppose you did,” Sir Richard replied, rising to his feet, and dusting the knees of his breeches.
“But it’s the most shocking thing! He was staying with me, sir!”