“Can it be Sir Brooke’s?”
Pendleton leaped ahead of us and snatched it from the ground, held it from him contemptuously.
“I doubt it.”
“I can tell you certainly that it is not Sir Brooke’s!”
One man, at least, jumped at the sound of a female voice among us. There was Eve Bartholomew, standing tall and tragic, clinging, I thought, to the last pinch of nerve she possessed.
“I couldn’t help being interested, you know,” she remarked ingenuously, and gave a little high-keyed laugh. “I just came from the Hall. But I can assure you that Sir Brooke has nothing to do with this affair. He would be mad to take any part in it. He would be mad to wear that rag of a disreputable hat.”
“Yes, Mrs. Bartholomew,” I agreed, “he would. I was about to say, before you identified the hat as not Sir Brooke’s, that it belongs to me. I wore it down the slopes of Aidenn Vale.”
“You did!”
“Yes—none too new when I set forth with it this morning, it has suffered a lifetime’s wear and tear with me to-day. That is the history of the hat.”
“But where did you see it last?” demanded Pendleton.