And it was there I lost her. How she went, or in which direction, I had no idea. But I had no doubt that she had evaded me of design—and that her home was nowhere thereabout. That she knew the Dale intimately was evident. She had deliberately led me to its darkest spot simply that she might there lose me. I smiled grimly as I realised that. She had fooled me with incomparable skill and wit. I paid a frank mental tribute to her cleverness. A young lady of brains, this, and one whose acquaintance was well worth cultivating.
I stood waiting for some little time—possibly ten minutes or a quarter of an hour—then lit a cigarette and walked slowly back to Stone Hollow, pondering over the queer little adventure, wondering who the girl was and whether—or rather when—I should see her again. She was evidently an inhabitant of the Dale—her familiarity with it at all events suggested that—in which case she could hardly expect to evade me permanently. I must sooner or later meet and recognise her. At any rate it was a piquant little mystery, and I must confess that somehow Cartordale no longer seemed quite so dull as it had been.
I had little idea then as to what the mystery, in which I had thus become involved, really was or how quickly it would develop on tragic and very unexpected lines.
I reached Stone Hollow again at 2.7 a.m. The whole episode, from the knock on the window to my return home had occupied two hours fourteen minutes.
CHAPTER II
THE TRAGEDY AT WHITE TOWERS
When I came down to Stone Hollow to take over my new inheritance, I found the house completely furnished on extremely comfortable if rather old-fashioned lines; and Martha Helter in possession. She had been my aunt’s housekeeper for over twenty years and had evidently every intention of being mine also. I was quite agreeable, since it saved me a lot of trouble, nor have I so far seen any reason to regret that decision.
Mrs. Helter—the title had apparently been accorded her by courtesy, since she was still a spinster and everybody but myself used it; but I began with Martha, her Christian name, and Martha it is to this day—is a most capable manager and runs my household with a precision that reminds one of well-oiled wheels, and a careful economy that has its recommendation in these days of ridiculous prices. She seemed to know and to be known by almost everybody in the Dale, and was an all but exhaustless fountain of anecdote and news.
I say “all but” because she could not give me immediately the information I sought regarding my pretty midnight visitor. Not that I attached very much actual importance to that queer incident. It had amused me, and perhaps, though I would not confess it even to myself, I was just a little piqued at being so cleverly outwitted by a mere girl. I had cause during the day to revise my estimate of the interest I was to take in my uninvited guest. But my first thought was to identify her.
“Martha,” I said to my housekeeper, “did you ever meet hereabouts a young lady wearing a grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves, a sort of cape reaching to her boots?”
Martha Helter pondered the question for a minute or two, but shook her head.