“Gee!” exclaimed Patsy, a bit derisively. “He’s got a gun. Are we up against a holdup?”
“Nothing of that kind. He has something to say to us.”
Nick was right. For when the car stopped near him, the man approached and said a bit gruffly:
“Gimme a lift, gents, will you? I want to go to Jim Bailey’s house, a mile farther on. He’s a county constable. There has been a murder.”
“A murder?” Nick echoed. “How do you know? What have you there?”
“Some things Ginger sniffed out of some underbrush near the old millpond back in the woods a piece,” said the man, with a glance at the hound. “I saw a man and a girl plugging that way early yesterday evening. She had this hat on, I’ll swear to that, and she was lugging this jacket on her arm. Have a look at them.”
The man unrolled a dark-green jacket and a stylish, velvet hat of the same hue. The latter was sadly battered and out of shape, as if beaten with a bludgeon. A crumpled handkerchief fell to the ground.
“Here are two worked letters on the handkerchief,” he added, picking it up. “P. P., as near as I can tell.”
“Pauline Perrot!” cried Patsy, momentarily excited.
He had recalled the description of the dark-green traveling suit worn by Pauline Perrot, as reported by the two women who had seen her with Arthur Gordon.