“At all about that,” affirmed Pegge. “It would be about six or eight minutes to, when I see him. ’Twas a quarter to, anyway, when I see the cob, and I wasn’t in his box many minutes. Then I went straight to get my tobacco-tin, and heard these footsteps.”
“I suppose you thought it was a queer thing—a guest going out of the house at that time of night, didn’t you?” suggested Blick.
“Uncommon queer, I thought!” agreed Pegge. “But then, ’twasn’t any concern of mine. And I shouldn’t ha’ taken much more notice of it if I hadn’t see him again.”
“Oh!” said Blick. “Ah! You did see him again, then?”
“I did—and when it was getting light, too—see him clear enough that time!”
“And what time was that?”
“We’ve a clock over our stables,” said Pegge. “It had just struck four.”
“Four o’clock!” repeated Blick meditatively. “Um! And where did you see him at four o’clock? Same place?”
“No,” replied Pegge. “Just before four o’clock I began to feel as if I could do with a cup of tea. I’d got a teapot with some tea in it, but, of course, I wanted boiling water. Now, we’ve a gas-stove in a little room at the end of the stables that our coachman uses as a sort of sitting-room for himself, d’ye see, so I went off there to light it, and boil some water in a kettle. It struck four while I was in there. I’d just put on the kettle, when I heard it strike four. Now, there’s a window in that little room as looks out on the back gardens—they run from the back of the Dower House to the foot of the park, where it begins to rise towards the downs. There’s a thick plantation of pine and larch between the gardens and the park, and I suddenly see this here Baron come out of it, as if he’d come down from the high ground above.”
“Was he alone?” asked Blick.