It was a relief to hear him declare his innocence. Even if he had spoken without emphasis she would not have doubted his word. It was because her belief in his innocence deepened the mystery of his reason for hiding that she repeated:
“But why are you here?”
“Do you believe me?” he asked. Between lovers faith counts for much more than reason.
“Of course I do.”
“I knew you would,” he said. “It is because I know you were true that I asked you to come. I am beginning to think that perhaps I made a great mistake in running away. But I was unnerved by the accident. I was thrown out of the car and I must have been unconscious in the road for more than an hour. And, recalling how poor Frank had met his death, it seemed to me that there was a diabolical scheme on foot to murder me as well. Perhaps I was wrong. Tell me everything. Do the police suspect me? Have they a warrant out for me? Did you go to the farm that night? I have sent out for a newspaper each day, but the London newspapers have said very little about the murder. All I have seen is a couple of small paragraphs.”
She was more immediately concerned in the discovery that he had been thrown out of a motor-car and injured than in his thirst for information about the murder at Cliff Farm. She was solicitous as to the extent of the injury he had suffered, the length of time he had been unconscious, and his movements after he came to his senses on the lonely road. Not only were her feminine sympathies stirred by the thought of the sufferings of the man she loved, but by the fear that the accident must have affected his mind temporarily and prompted him to hide himself.
He was too impatient for her news to spare time for more than a vague disconnected account of the accident. He assured her that he was all right again, except for a cut on the head which he showed her. It was on her news more than on anything else that the question of his return to Staveley depended.
She told him in response to his questions that the murder had created a sensation. Every one was talking about it. The Staveley Courier had published a two column account of the tragedy with details about the victim and the eccentricities of his grandfather in later years. Stress was laid, in the newspaper account of the story, on the rumour that old Joseph Lumsden had buried his money after the war broke out, and on the disappointment of the legatees whose legacies could not be paid at his death because the money could not be found. The police, it was stated, had questioned these legatees as to their movements on the night of the murder. The theory of the police seemed to be that the murder had been committed by some one who had heard about the buried money and believed it was hidden in the house, or thought the victim had known where it was hidden.
She told him that Scotland Yard had sent down a detective to investigate the crime, and that Mr. Crewe, the famous private detective, was also working on it.
“Crewe!” he exclaimed in dismay. “Who has brought him into it?”