“I don’t know about that, my lord; it would have been a safe hiding-place, if the water hadn’t given out—and it would be in his way if he were making for the West Gate. He could hardly have taken a shorter cut than across this garden.”
“Perhaps not—if both the garden doors were open that night.”
“I don’t think anybody ever saw them shut, my lord, night or day,” answered Carter, with respectful persistency.
Theodore knew by the very look of the clumsy wooden doors, pushed back against the old wall, with rusty hinges, and with the tendrils of vine or plum tree growing over their edges, that the man was right. The path across this garden and the next garden led in a direct line to the West Lodge, and it was this way by which the servants went on most of their errands to the village.
The one idea suggested by the choice of that hiding-place was that the person who threw away that pistol was familiar with the premises. The well was about thirty feet away from the path, and screened by the old espaliers. There was a gap in the espaliers where an ancient and cankered apple tree had been taken out, and it was by this opening that the gardeners generally went to draw water. They had trodden a hard foot-track in their going and coming.
It was always possible that a stranger exploring the grounds furtively and in haste might have been sharp enough to hit upon the well as a safe and handy hiding-place. It would, of course, have been vital to the murderer to get rid of his weapon as soon as possible after the deed was done, lest he should be taken red-handed and with that piece of evidence upon him.
Theodore saw in that pistol with the initials “T. D.,” confirmatory evidence against the husband of Mrs. Danvers, the one person in the world who had ground for an undying hatred of Lord Cheriton and his race. He made no remark upon the discovery of the weapon, fearing to say too much; and he waited quietly to see how his kinsman would act in the matter. That ghastly change in Lord Cheriton’s countenance as he examined the pistol, suggested that he had come to the same conclusion as Theodore. Remorse and horror could hardly have been more plainly expressed by the human countenance; and what remorse could be more terrible than that of the man who saw the sin of his youth visited upon his innocent daughter?
“Shall you take any steps with reference to this discovery?” asked Theodore, when they had gone half-way back to the house in absolute silence.
“What steps can I take, do you think? Send for another London detective—or for the same man again—and give him this pistol? To what end? He would be no nearer finding the murderer because of the finding of the pistol.”
“The initials might lead to identification.”