“The others have gone on,” Fell explained. “Lady Ulrica had a kind of faint, and Mrs. Harrison and Vernon have taken her back to the house. What a time you’ve been!”
“I suppose you didn’t find anyone?” Mrs. Greatorex asked.
“No, no, we didn’t,” Harrison replied. “Only a part of the lady’s apparel.” And he exhibited the tulle scarf with the air of one prepared to explain a conjuring trick.
“Where did you find it?” Fell asked.
“On Harrison’s back,” Greatorex said.
“On his back?” ejaculated Fell.
“Simple enough, simple enough,” Harrison explained. “We’d been dodging and skirmishing about the plantation, and, no doubt, I unknowingly scraped the thing off one of the trees. Greatorex saw it when we came out into the light by the lake.”
“Yes,” Greatorex commented, “and it was spread out over his coat as neatly as you please—might have been arranged there as a kind of joke.”
“Herbert!” his wife ejaculated. “Do you mean that the woman was playing tricks on you; behind your back, as it were?”
Harrison clicked his tongue, as if he were facetiously reproving a child.