“All right,” Greatorex agreed, and added in a mood of sudden confidence; “Beastly weird sort of place, this, but it’s been a weird sort of affair altogether.”
“Mad woman,” commented Harrison with a touch of vehemence.
“Queer, certainly,” Greatorex agreed. “But why did you say hoax, just now? You don’t think that...?”
They had been talking in interrupted snatches as they pressed their way, keeping close together, through the stubborn resistance of the yews, but as Greatorex’s sentence trailed away with a suggestion of cutting off his own suspicions, they came out on to the long grass that bordered the lake.
Harrison stopped, and gave a sigh that may have indicated his relief at getting clear from the intriguing opposition of the plantation.
Before them was spread the placid deep of the black water, so calm and rigid that it looked like a sheet of unsoiled and faintly lustrous ice. To the right and left of them the bank ran in a flat curve, in full sight for a quarter of a mile each way, save that it was bordered by an uneven selvage of impenetrable black shadow. But nowhere was there any sign of a flitting white shape, escaping from the charges of hoax or insanity that had been brought against it.
“Either got away or hiding in the plantation,” remarked Greatorex, after a pause during which with a suggestion of breathless eagerness the two men had searched the moonlit distances. The wreath of cirrus had cleared away now, and the moon had reached the perfect gold of its ultimate splendour.
“Hm!” Harrison replied thoughtfully. “Not much good searching the plantation.”
“Might as well hunt for a louse in a woodstack,” Greatorex thought.
“What did you make of it, G.?” Harrison asked suddenly.