“How far is the farm-house?” I asked. “It is rather queer we cannot see any lights.”
“Oh, I think there are some barns or something of the sort between the road and the house,” Miss Kitty Clevedon told me. “And, besides, it lies in a hollow and the rocks may hide it. I have seen the place before, but only in daylight, and I forget just how it stands.”
“If you will allow me I will go as far as the house and inquire,” I said, producing my own electric lamp. “Possibly your man has tripped over a stone—”
“Tripped over a stone!” her ladyship cried scornfully. “He’s more likely philandering with the Lepley girl. Do you know her?”
I replied in the negative, adding that, indeed I had never heard of her.
“Well, you’re the only man in the Dale that doesn’t know her,” the old lady retorted. “Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong with the girl, but the men are crazy over her, and Hartrey with the rest, I suppose.”
I could not help being a little entertained by the idea that I might be a competitor with the chauffeur for the favours of the fair Lepley. But I did not put the thought into words. I hadn’t an opportunity, indeed, for the old lady threw off her rugs and made evident preparations to alight.
“If you would wait here, I could go alone,” I ventured, thinking the search would be hampered rather than helped by the old lady’s presence. But she did not even answer me. She stepped from the car with an agility which showed that her body was still younger than her years, and herself led the way towards a gap in the tumble-down, rubble wall where once apparently had been a gate. The car, I noticed, was standing well aside on the rough turf that flanked the roadway, and, in any case, there was little enough traffic in those parts at that time of the year. We might leave it there in safety. And accordingly the three of us made our way along the very rough and uneven road that led to Lepley’s farm.
“No,” said the farmer’s wife, who answered my rap at the door, “Mr. Hartrey has not been here to-night.”
She called to somebody who was evidently in a kitchen at the rear of the house.