“Yes?” Harrison prompted her gently.
“Oh, and then I threw it down—the scarf, I mean—and everything went black. I thought I was going to die. I went down on my knees and tried to pray. I don’t remember anything after that until—until they found me.”
Harrison’s agile mind seized the significance of this evidence in a flash. At one stroke it eliminated the probability of that scarf having been worn by a stranger. If the scarf had lain there by the side of the swooning Miss Messenger, no one but a mad woman could have callously picked it up, worn it and postured before a group of half a dozen people without making the least mention of the helpless figure to whom it belonged. For a moment he played with the thought of a madwoman, but dismissed it. If there was a madwoman in Long Orton or the neighbourhood, he would have heard of her.
He sighed heavily, and chiefly for the sake of giving himself more time, said, “You’re quite sure you had the scarf with you?”
“Well, of course,” Miss Messenger replied. “I only bought it last week;” and added with a shudder, “but I don’t ever want to see it again.” There could be no question of the vividness of the unhappy memories associated in her mind with that particular article of apparel.
“It doesn’t follow, however,” Harrison went on thoughtfully after a perceptible pause, “that because you have no memory of anything after you fainted, you never moved from the spot where you were found?”
Miss Messenger shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t say anything about that, can I?” she asked.
“You see,” Harrison explained, “earlier in the evening, it may have been about eleven or thereabouts, my friends and I saw someone down by the plantation, and—and went down to investigate. And there we met and spoke to—er—someone who was unquestionably wearing your scarf—which she later discarded. It was found later by myself, as a matter of fact.”
“How very extraordinary!” was all Miss Messenger’s comment. Her surprise and interest, however, were beyond question.
“Inexplicable,” Harrison agreed.