“Me?” exclaimed the man, recoiling as he spoke. “Why should I? It is not mine.”
“Come,” said Crewe, “I will exchange the hat for a candid statement of what happened at Cliff Farm on that fateful night.”
“It is not his,” declared the dwarf. “We know nothing about Cliff Farm—we have never been there.”
CHAPTER X
“Will you come to some place where we can have a talk?”
“Yes. Where shall we go?”
Her eyes met his frankly, as she replied, and Marsland as he looked at her was impressed with her beauty and the self-possession of her manner. She was young, younger than he had thought on the night of the storm—not more than twenty-two or twenty-three at the most—and as she stood there, with the bright autumn sunshine revealing the fresh beauty of her face and the slim grace of her figure, she made a striking picture of dainty English girlhood, to whom the sordid and tragic sides of life ought to be a sealed book. But Marsland’s mind, as he glanced at her, travelled back to his first meeting with her in the lonely farm-house where they had found the body of the murdered man on the night of the storm.
He led her to one of the numerous tea-rooms on the front, choosing one which was nearly empty, his object being to have a quiet talk with her. Since the eventful night on which he had walked home with her after they had discovered the dead body of the owner of Cliff Farm, several important points had arisen on which he desired to enlighten her, and others on which he desired to be enlightened by her.
“I thought of writing to you,” he said after he had found seats for his companion and himself in a quiet corner of the large tea-room and had given an order to the waitress. “But I came to the conclusion that it was unwise—that you might not like it.”