“Not a one, sir.” The men seemed to regard the idea as a thing of abhorrence, and I had to laugh my question away as a grim joke.
A couple of miles southward on the way home, I met the two workmen who had gone to Highglen House for a shutter on which to transport the body. Salt was with them, and all three regarded me queerly, which was natural, for I was carrying, besides the clothes-rope, the umbrella which I had left in the ruin last night.
“Decided not to hang yourself?” asked Salt, his eye on the rope.
I handed him the umbrella, which he received with puzzled brow. “Item,” I said, “to prove the objective of the menagerie-keeper.”
“Quite,” he responded. “Have you seen what we’re goin’ after?”
“I have. He was the first of the men I encountered that night.”
“I guessed so. Well, this party’s out of it altogether—time and distance, you know, time and distance.”
“I suppose that’s so. Time and distance, the two greatest villains that ever feazed the detective force. The landslide certainly did not occur more than fifteen minutes after Cosgrove’s death.”
“And this man was in it, was he?”
“What do you mean? Of course he was.”