To his surprise he felt the weight of the man's body lift, something hit him across the side of the head, and he was aware, even while his ears sang, that the man had gone from his side.
He dragged himself to a sitting position; sitting, incidentally, on the stone he had been hit with (by its feel its proper place was a rockery), and was groping for his torch preparatory to following the man, when a woman's voice said out of the dark in a whisper:
"Is that you, Bert? Is anything wrong?"
Grant's hand lighted on the torch, and he got to his feet.
The light shone into eyes big and brown and soft as a deer's. But the rest of the face was not soft.
She drew in her breath as the light flashed, and made a movement backwards.
"Stay still," said Grant in a voice that brooked no disobedience, and the movement ceased.
"Don't talk so loud," she said urgently. "Who are you, anyway? I thought you were — a friend of mine."
"I'm a detective inspector — a policeman."
This statement, Grant had found, produced invariably one of two expressions: fear or wariness. Quite innocent people often showed the first; but the second was a giveaway. It gave away the woman now.