The pair passed close against them where they lay in the darkness, so close that Cleek's fingers might have reached out and caught at the other's trouser-leg and tripped him. But the time was not yet ripe for arrests. Better let the thing go unsuspected until to-morrow afternoon, and then, when the Coroner's Inquest was at hand, rally them all together in the library once more, and make the final settlement.
Here was only a part of the thing, not the whole thing itself, and if he knew one of his men, he did not yet feel certain of the other. The night should bring that uncertainty into clarity if possible.
The darkness hid the couple from view at length, and when their footsteps had died away into silence, Cleek touched Dollops upon the shoulder and commenced wriggling upon his stomach down toward the next furze-bush, and out into the open, lying flat as Indians do, until they had slid the distance between the two clumps of shrubs, and lay concealed, some twelve feet nearer to the scene of operations.
"See anything of your Dago friend?" whispered Cleek, after they had watched for a while in silence at this hive of living industry which, when the dawn had penetrated through the veil of night, would have passed out of sight and vision as though it were a mirage of their own imagining.
Dollops's voice was barely above a breath.
"Yessir. Just dahn there ter the right. Feller wiv the big black moustache. Slim-'ipped Johnny in the dark suit. Got blinkers on 'im like black velvet from wot I sees. Proper furriner—the dirty dog! Find 'im, sir?"
"Not yet. Oh! yes, I see! H'm. An Italian all right. But what the dickens is an Italian doing in these outlandish parts? And what attraction can this perishing climate have for people of their ilk? First the Lady of the Castle—and now this one. Unless.... Gad! there might be some connection between 'em. Did you find any trace of Captain Macdonald's handwriting, Dollops, to show me?"
"Yessir. Got a letter from 'is groom. Pinched it while we was a-talkin'. 'E showed it ter me, an' it's in me pocket. Summink wrong there, Gov'nor?"
"So wrong that it will take more than a little explaining upon the gentleman's part to put it right, my lad," responded Cleek in a whisper. "I want to see that letter—badly. But it will have to wait until we are back again at the house. And we'll be back in a jiffy. I'm satisfied with the result of this night's work, in this direction, at any rate, Dollops. You've done well—better than I could have done in similar circumstances, and I'm downright pleased with you!"
"Lor', sir!" Dollops's voice was choking with joyful emotion. "If yer goes and frows any more buckets at me, me chest will expand that big wiv pride as they'll be spottin' us in a trick—strite they will! But I'm glad I've made up for that footlin' mistyke over the lydy.... Gawd! Look, Guv'nor—look! 'Oo's this a-comin' now? A woman—strike me pink, if it ain't! And a lydy, too, from the cut of 'er. Now, 'oo in 'eavin's nyme is she?"