“What a beautiful afternoon!” he said. “I have been admiring the view from the Castle. A very fine prospect indeed, is it not?”
“Well, sir, some admires it and some don’t,” replied the landlord. “I fancies something with a bit more life in it myself. But I dessay it’s a change to you after London.”
“It is, indeed,” agreed the Professor. “Indeed, I am so taken with the look of the heath, that I propose to take a walk across it after dinner.”
“Well, don’t lose your way, sir. It’s a bit lonely out there. You aren’t likely to meet anyone who’ll put you right, either.”
“Oh, it is not really dark till ten o’clock,” replied the Professor cheerfully. “I have my map, and the Castle ruins must be visible from a long way off. You need have no fears of my getting lost.”
“There’s no danger, sir,” the landlord hastened to agree. “Only you might happen to wander a bit further afield than you meant to. The bar closes at ten, but if you happen to be later than that, you’ve only got to knock on the door. I shan’t be abed afore eleven.”
The Professor’s dinner was served punctually at seven, and by eight o’clock he was well on the road of which the landlord had told him, and which his map showed him led in the direction of the railway. A short distance beyond the village he found a narrow lane, which, after a few twists and turnings, brought him out upon the track. There was a narrow path beside it, and along this he stepped out, anxious to reach his destination while it was still broad daylight.
The track followed a devious path across the heath, which, viewed from near at hand, was more undulating than at first appeared. The track had been built to avoid the steeper gradients, but every now and then it ran upon a low embankment or through a shallow cutting. On either side the heath spread out, silent and mysterious, sometimes bare and sandy, with twisted pine trees standing above it at intervals, sometimes covered with low, dense thickets, in which the general silence seemed to be accentuated. When the line rose slightly to cross one of the lesser eminences, the Professor caught a fleeting glimpse of still water, the wandering arm of some unfrequented lagoon among the islands of the harbour. Behind him the sun hung low over the long range of the Purbeck hills, which changed from green and gold to blue and purple as the sun sank ever lower. Against them, the sharp outlines of the ruined Castle stood out clear cut like a beacon.
As the Professor strode on through the silence, devoid of any vestige of human habitation, he noticed how admirably adapted was this barren heath to purposes of concealment. Spread over its surface were a series of shallow depressions, shaped like a saucer, and sometimes holding an abandoned gravel pit, now half filled with stagnant water after the winter rains. A man might lie concealed in one of these, secure from observation, for as long as he could keep himself supplied with food. There would be no risk of discovery, those whose business led them to cross the heath kept strictly to the narrow paths, barely a foot wide, which meandered at wide intervals through the close growth of heather. A living man, so long as he avoided observation from these paths, might lie hidden for as long as he chose. And if a living man, why not a dead body? How easy to drag the damning evidence of crime into one of those dark thickets, to sink it into the silent depths of one of those black, unruffled pools!
The Professor shuddered, and increased his pace. This lonely heath was no place in which to indulge in morbid thoughts. His life might be in danger, but somehow he felt that it was not here that the blow would fall. If his theory were correct, if he had gauged aright the psychology of his adversary, it would not be thus that he would meet his death, here where there was none to witness the blow. Despite the almost threatening aspect of the country, deepening in tone every instant as the sun sank lower behind the distant hills, there was no vestige of any real danger. The shadows that lurked amid the gorse and heather were but the shadows of his own fears.