"We don't know," answered Neale. "All we know is, there's a man's body lying at the bottom of one of the old shafts up there—near Ellersdeane Tower. The tinker who camps out there has just seen it—he's been partly down the shaft."
"And—did not recognize it?" asked Gabriel.
"No—it was too far beneath him," replied Neale. "He's gone into the village to get help."
Gabriel lingered a moment, and then, lifting his hat again, began to move forward towards the town.
"I should advise you to acquaint the police, Mr. Neale," he said. "Good-morning!"
He marched away, stiffly upright, across the bridge and up the Cornmarket, and Neale and Betty followed.
"Why did you tell—him?" asked Betty.
Neale threw a glance of something very like scorn after the retreating figure.
"Wanted to see how he'd take it!" he answered. "Bah!—Gabriel Chestermarke's no better than a wax figure! You might as well tell a marble image any news of this sort as tell him! You'd have thought he'd have had sufficient human feeling in him to say that he hoped it wasn't your uncle, anyhow!"
"No, I shouldn't," said Betty. "I sized Gabriel up—and Joseph, too—when I walked into their parlour the other afternoon. They haven't any feelings—you might as well expect to get feeling out of a fish."