Meanwhile, as the vicar and his wife had turned into the road at the Manor gates, the doctor's gardener, one Amos Goodwin, had chanced to be passing.
Amos was a sociable creature who measured his success in life by the amount of new and in some cases original gossip he managed to put into circulation. He was the most prolific purveyor of intimate domestic scandal in the neighborhood. Certainly he was the indispensable right-hand man of Mrs. Rudd the post-mistress, supplying her with the material on which she ran an informal Bureau of Unreliable Information. Amos had come past the Manor on the off-chance of seeing something which might suggest a plausible theory about the Manor mystery; but he was too good a journalist not to prefer to deal in the truth when he could get it; and the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Davies actually leaving the suspicious premises held promise of a real and authentic "scoop"—if he could only hear what they were saying. He hobbled after the pair as quickly as he could, his long ear straining forward; but they swung off down the road at a pace that his rheumatic old legs could not hope to emulate. All the same, he had his reward; before she was out of earshot he heard Mrs. Davies' loud and piercing voice, remarking:
"Well, Julian, all I can say is that I consider the whole place a perfect scandal. Those black men, and the horrible women—ugh! The whole place looked more like a scene from 'Chu Chin Chow' than an English country house. And one thing I consider most suspicious...."
Amos could hear no more. But on his way home he stopped at the post office.
CHAPTER XII ALF RECEIVES
That evening a deep peace had settled over Dunwater Park. Except for two people sunning themselves on the terrace, all the inhabitants of the hospital had gone to the tennis-court or the golf-links or the river.
"Oh dear," said Isobel, breaking a long silence. "I suppose I ought to go and finish the day's work before dinner."
"Don't," urged Denis Allen earnestly.