"Because I saw her," responded Cleek, irritably. "And if seeing isn't believing then my name's not—Lieutenant Deland."
He did not add, however, that there was something about the clinging white figure that he had seen that had given him a sudden feeling that it might be a man—or had that beard been simply a trick of his imagination? It was hard to tell.
"She wore a white, clinging robe, at least it looked like that, and a kind of turban. I had only a glimpse, but it was not the figure of a servant, of that I am sure," he went on after a pause. The constable stood gaping at him in open-mouthed amazement.
"Yes, you may well be sure of that," said he finally with a little grin. "There's precious few servants up in that house, I can tell you. Why, it would break the old lady's heart to think there was someone in that house eating anything without paying for it first."
"Hmm. Close as that, eh? And do you mean to tell me that that Miss Cheyne lived in that deserted barn without another soul to keep her company?"
The constable nodded his head with evident relish. Giving information was a great deal more in his line than receiving it.
"I do that!" he said confidentially. "She used to have old Timms and his wife, sort of combination gardener and 'ousekeeper as you might put it, but when they dies of rheumatism last year, one followin' on t'other, she just 'ad one of the village women occasionally. No, it certainly wouldn't be any servant.
"Talking of turbans, though, it might be one of them Indian chaps wots just come lately in the neighbourhood," the constable continued with a sudden spark of actual intelligence—the first, by the way, he had shown. "Can't abide niggers, myself, but there's no accounting for tastes, and——"
"What's that? Do you mean to tell me there are Hindoos here?" Cleek's voice trailed away into silence, for fresh in his memory was the recollection of the scent he had noticed when he first entered the house. He remembered what it was now. It was jasmine, of course, and jasmine was the favourite scent of the Calcutta bazaars. So that was it, was it? A shrouded woman, eh? A shrouded fiddlesticks! If the Hindoos were in the neighbourhood they were there for no good purpose.
But the constable was getting garrulous.