'Beg your pardon, Sir; but his body's bin found, Sir.'
'You mean Mr. Mark?'
'Yes, please, Sir; in a hole near the mill road—it's up in the "Silver
Lion" now, Sir.'
'It must be the vicar's—it must,' said Jos. Larkin, getting his hat on, sternly, and thinking how likely he was to throw himself into the mill race, and impossible it was that Mark, whom he and Larcom had both seen alive and well last night—the latter, indeed, this morning—could possibly be the man. And thus comforting himself, he met old Major Jackson on the green, and that gentleman's statement ended with the words; 'and in an advanced stage of decomposition.'
'That settles the matter,' said Larkin, breathing again, and with a toss of his head, and almost a smile of disdain: 'for I saw Mr. Mark Wylder late last night at Shillingsworth.'
Leaving Major Jackson in considerable surprise, Mr. Larkin walked off to Edwards' dwelling, at the top of Church Street, and found that active policeman at home. In his cool, grand, official way, Mr. Larkin requested Mr. Edwards to accompany him to the 'Silver Lion,' where in the same calm and commanding way, he desired him to attend him to view the corpse. In virtue of his relation to Mark Wylder, and of his position as sole resident and legal practitioner, he was obeyed.
The odious spectacle occupied him for some minutes. He did not speak while they remained in the room. On coming out there was a black cloud upon the attorney's features, and he said, sulkily, to Edwards, who had turned the key in the lock, and now touched his hat as he listened,
'Yes, there is a resemblance, but it is all a mistake. I travelled as far as Shillingsworth last night with Mr. Mark Wylder: he was perfectly well. This can't be he.'
But there was a terrible impression on Mr. Jos. Larkin's mind that this certainly was he, and with a sulky nod to the policeman, he walked darkly down to the vicar's house. The vicar had been sent for to Naunton to pray with a dying person; and Mr. Larkin, disappointed, left a note to state that in writing that morning, as he had done, in reference to the purchase of the reversion, through Messrs. Burlington and Smith, he had simply expressed his own surmises as to the probable withdrawal of the intending purchaser, but had received no formal, nor, indeed, any authentic information, from either the party or the solicitors referred to, to that effect. That he mentioned this lest misapprehension should arise, but not as attaching any importance to the supposed discovery which seemed to imply Mr. Mark Wylder's death. That gentleman, on the contrary, he had seen alive and well at Shillingsworth on the night previous; and he had been seen in conference with Captain Lake at a subsequent hour, at Brandon.
From all this the reader may suppose that Mr. Jos. Larkin was not quite in a comfortable state, and he resolved to get the deeds, and go down again to the vicar's, and persuade him to execute them. He could make William Wylder, of course, do whatever he pleased.