“Would you mind telling us what you know as to how this happened?”
“I know very little,” she replied. “As he did not come home last night, I went to the studio this morning quite early to see if he was there. He sometimes stayed there all night when he was working very late. The woman who lives in the adjoining house and looks after the studio, told me that he had been working late last night, but that he left to come home soon after ten. He always used to come through the wood because it was the shortest way and the most pleasant. So when I learned that he had started to come home, I came to the wood to see if I could find any traces of him. Then I met this gentleman, and he told me that he had seen a dead man in the wood, and⸺” Here she suddenly broke down, and, sobbing passionately, flung out her hand towards the corpse.
The inspector shut his notebook and, murmuring some indistinct words of sympathy, nodded to the constables, who had drawn up the stretcher a few paces away and lifted off the cover. On this silent instruction they approached the body, and, with the inspector’s assistance and mine, lifted it on to the stretcher without removing the latter from its carriage. As they picked up the cover the inspector turned to Miss D’Arblay and said gently but finally: “You had better not come with us. We must take him to the mortuary, but you will see him again after the inquest, when he will be brought to your house if you wish it.”
She made no objection; but as the constables approached with the cover she stooped over the stretcher and kissed the dead man on the forehead. Then she turned away; the cover was placed in position; the inspector and the constables saluted reverently, and the stretcher was wheeled away along the narrow track.
For some time after it had gone, we stood in silence at the margin of the pond with our eyes fixed on the place where it had disappeared. I considered in no little embarrassment what was to be done next. It was most desirable that Miss D’Arblay should be got home as soon as possible, and I did not at all like the idea of her going alone, for her appearance, with her drenched skirts and her dazed and rather wild expression, was such as to attract unpleasant attention. But I was a total stranger to her, and I felt a little shy of pressing my company on her. However, it seemed a plain duty, and, as I saw her shiver slightly, I said:
“You had better go home now and change your clothes. They are very wet. And you have some distance to go.”
She looked down at her soaked dress and then she looked at me.
“You are rather wet, too,” she said. “I am afraid I have given you a great deal of trouble.”
“It is little enough that I have been able to do,” I replied. “But you must really go home now; and if you will let me walk with you and see you safely to your house, I shall be much more easy in my mind.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “It is kind of you to offer to see me home, and I am glad not to have to go alone.”