The waterman, for a while wondering what it is all about, soon begins to have a glimmer of comprehension. It is clearer when he is directed to scull the boat up into the little cove where the body was found. Soon as he has her steadied inside it, close up against the cliff’s base, Ryecroft draws out a small lamp, and lights it. He then rises to his feet, and leaning forward, lays hold of a projecting point of rock. On that resting his hand, he continues for some time regarding the scratches on its surface, supposed to have been made by the feet of the drowned lady in her downward descent. Where he stands they are close to his eyes, and he can trace them from commencement to termination. And so doing, a shadow of doubt is seen to steal over his face, as though he doubted the finding of the Coroner’s jury, and the belief of every one that Gwendoline Wynn had there fallen over.
Bending lower, and examining the broken branches of the juniper, he doubts no more, but is sure—convinced of the contrary!
Jack Wingate sees him start back with a strange surprised look, at the same time exclaiming,—
“I thought as much! No accident!—no suicide—murdered!”
Still wondering, the waterman asks no questions. Whatever it may mean, he expects to be told in time, and is therefore patient.
His patience is not tried by having to stay much longer there. Only a few moments more, during which Ryecroft bends over the boat’s side, takes the juniper twigs in his hand, one after the other, raises them up as they were before being broken, then lets them gently down again!
To his companion he says nothing to explain this apparently eccentric manipulation, leaving Jack to guesses. Only when it is over, and he is apparently satisfied, or with observation exhausted, giving the order,—
“Way, Wingate! Row back—up the river!”
With alacrity the waterman obeys; but too glad to get out of that shadowy passage. For a weird feeling is upon him, as he remembers how there the screech owls mournfully cried, as if to make him sadder when thinking of his own lost love.
Moving out into the main channel and on up stream, Ryecroft is once more silent and musing. But on reaching the place from which the pavilion can be again sighted, he turns round on the thwart and looks back. It startles him to see a form under the shadow of its roof—a woman!—how different from that he last saw there! The ex-cocotte of Paris—faded flower of the Jardin Mabille—has replaced the fresh beautiful blossom of Wyeside—blighted in its bloom!