"It was Cyril. I did not see him at all after he wished us good-bye on leaving the dining-room. But Richard, when he joined me later in the evening, said he had been--had been," repeated Isaac, having rather hesitated at these words, "saying a parting word to Hunter, and that Cyril was walking part of the way with him."
Throwing a pocket handkerchief lightly over the disfigured face, Isaac Thornycroft turned from it towards the sea. The justice spoke.
"I wonder where Cyril left him?"
To wonder it was only natural, but Mr. Thornycroft's remembrances of the matter, as to what he had heard, were altogether hazy. Shut up so long in the dining-room with his guests--for they had not parted until past midnight--doing his part as host at the pipes and grog, though not very extensively, for it was rare indeed that Mr. Thornycroft took too much, he was in a tired, sleepy state when Isaac had come to him after their departure to say that the work was done, the cargo safely in. Isaac had added that he understood from Richard there had been some trouble with Hunter; who had seen the torch-light exhibited on the Half-moon beach, and Richard had been obliged to swear him to secrecy, and had sent Cyril to see him safe away. Of all this, the justice retained an indistinct remembrance.
"Yes," he said slowly, "I recollect now; it was Cyril that you said, Isaac. We must go and find Cyril, and ascertain where he parted with Hunter."
"Why!" suddenly exclaimed a young fisherman of the name of East, "I saw them both together last night; the gentleman and Mr. Cyril. I'd been down at my old mother's and was coming out to go home, when they passed, a walking in the middle of the road. I'd never have noticed 'em, may be, but for the fur coat, for they'd got some way ahead. I see them stop and stand together like, and shake hands as if they was about to part; and then they went on again."
"Both of them went on again?" questioned Isaac. "Yes, sir, both. They went on into the hollow, and I came away."
This young man's mother lived in a solitary hut at the end of the village: in fact, just where Cyril had proposed to leave Hunter, and East must have come out at the same moment.
"We'll go at once and see what Cyril says," resumed the justice, moving away. "Hunter must have come back with him."
"What is to be done with Mr. Hunter, sir?" questioned Tomlett, who had some sort of authority in the place. It did seem like a mockery to call that poor mass of death lying there "Mr. Hunter."