"Mr. Chattaway and Master Rupert. I was scared, and crep' in amid the trees, and they never saw me. And then I heard blows, and I looked out and saw Mr. Rupert struck down to the earth, and he fell as one who hasn't got no life in him, and I knew he was dead."
"And what happened next?" asked Bowen.
"I don't know, sir. I come off then, and got into mother's. I didn't dare tell her it was Chattaway killed him. I wouldn't tell now, only you force me."
Bowen was revolving things in his mind, this and that. "Not five minutes ago Chattaway gave me orders to have Rupert Trevlyn searched for and taken up to-day," he muttered, more to himself than to George Ryle. "He knew he was skulking somewhere in the neighbourhood, he said; skulking, that was the word. I don't know what to think of this."
Neither did his hearers know, Mr. Jim Sanders possibly excepted. "I wonder," slowly resumed Bowen, a curious light coming into his eyes, "what brought those scratches on the face of Mr. Chattaway?"
CHAPTER XLIV
FERMENT
Strange rumours were abroad in the neighbourhood of Trevlyn Hold, and the excitement increased hourly. Mr. Chattaway had murdered Rupert Trevlyn—so ran the gossip—and Jim Sanders was in custody. Before the night of the day on which you saw Jim in the police-station, these reports, with many wild and almost impossible additions, were current, and spreading largely.
With the exception of the accusation made by Jim Sanders, the only corroboration to the tale appeared to rest in the fact that Rupert Trevlyn was not to be found. Dumps and his brother-constable scoured the locality high and low, and could find no traces of him. Sober lookers-on (but it is rare to find them in times of great excitement) regarded this as a favourable fact. Had Rupert really been murdered, or even accidentally killed by a chance blow from Mr. Chattaway, surely his body would be forthcoming to confirm the tale. But there were not wanting others who believed, and did not shrink from the avowal, that Mr. Chattaway was quite capable of suppressing all signs of the affray, including the dead body itself; though by what sleight-of-hand the act could have been accomplished seemed likely to remain a mystery.