The moment the butler left him alone Mr. Pike's first proceeding had been to cover his head again with his wide-awake, which he had evidently removed with reluctance, and might have refused to remove at all had it been consistent with policy; his second was to snatch up the candle, bend over the dead face, and examine it minutely both with eye and hand.
"There is a wound, then, and it's true what they are saying. I thought it might have been gossip," he muttered, as he pushed the soft dark hair from the temple. "Any more suspicious marks?" he resumed, taking a rapid view of the hands and head. "No; nothing but what he'd be likely to get in the water: but—I'll swear that might have been the blow of a human hand. 'Twould stun, if it wouldn't kill; and then, held under the water—"
At this moment Mr. Pike and his comments were interrupted, and he drew back from the table on which the body was lying; but not before Lord Hartledon had seen him touching the face of the dead.
"What are you doing?" came the stern demand.
"I wasn't harming him," was the answer; and Mr. Pike seemed to have suddenly returned to his roughness. "It's a nasty accident to have happened; and I don't like this."
He pointed to the temple as he spoke. Lord Hartledon's usually good-natured brow—at present a brow of deep sorrow—contracted with displeasure.
"It is an awful accident," he replied. "But I asked what you were doing here?"
"I thought I'd like to look upon him, sir; and the butler let me in. I wish I'd been a bit nearer the place at the time: I'd have saved him, or got drowned myself. Not much fear of that, though. I'm a rat for the water. Was that done fairly?" pointing again to the temple.
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Val.
"Well—it might be, or it might not. One who has led the roving life I have, and been in all sorts of scenes, bred in the slums of London too, looks on the suspicious side of these things. And there mostly is one in all of 'em."