“Been looking for you everywhere,” Greatorex said as he came within speaking distance. “We’ve found the lady.”
“Alive?” gasped Harrison.
“Rather. Not exactly hearty, perhaps, but she’s all right. Well enough, in any case, to walk back to the house in the company of her father and Fell.” He dropped his voice confidentially as he added: “Seems that it’s a case with Fell. What? We found ’em together, you know, in a cosy little place among the yews, not five yards from the spot where the mysterious lady came out. Perfect little tunnel up to it, too. If we’d happened on it at first, we’d have found the girl there and saved all the trouble. Fell knew all about the place, it seems. Went straight to it and found Miss Messenger in a faint, or just recovering from it.”
“How long had she been there?” Harrison asked sharply.
“All the time, presumably,” Greatorex said.
“Come there to meet Fell, eh?”
“Seems probable. And we spoilt his little game by coming too, I suppose. However, he’s owned up now. Made a clean breast of it, and declared his intention of marrying her; in the presence of five witnesses. Quite a dramatic little scene there was. Old Messenger was almost overcome.”
Harrison did not seem to have been attending to this speech, for his next question was:
“You didn’t find anything else there, did you? No apparatus of any kind, such as a mask or attempts at a disguise?”
“Lord, no. I didn’t see anything, and I was the first to get to them,” Greatorex replied. “But why? You don’t think....”