“They are, my friend.”
He began the old round. That is to say, he read the case as they had drawn it up, while Constance compared it with the evidence.
“ ‘These are the facts of the inquest, of the trial, of the effects of the crime, the evidence of place, and the evidence of time:
“ ‘The two leave the house, they walk together through the Park; they cross the road, they get over the stile, they enter the wood. Then the Squire turns back——’ ”
“After some short time,” Constance corrected. “According to the recollection of the ancient man who was the bird-scarer, he went into the wood.”
“ ‘Then the Squire walked homewards rapidly. If the housekeeper gave the time correctly, and it took him the same time to get home as to reach the wood—I have timed the distance—he may have been ten minutes—a quarter of an hour in the wood.
“ ‘Two hours or so later, the boy saw a working man, whom he knew well by sight and name, enter the wood. He was dressed in a smock-frock, and carried certain tools or instruments over his shoulder. He remained in the wood a few minutes only, and then came running out, his white smock spotted with red, as the boy could see plainly from the hillside. He ran to the farmyard beyond the field, and returned with other men and a shutter. They entered the wood, and presently came out carrying “something” covered up. The boy was asked both at the inquest and the trial whether anyone else had entered the wood or had come out of it. He was certain that no one had done so, or could have done so without his knowledge.
“ ‘The men carried the body to the house. They were met on the terrace by the housekeeper, who seemed to have shrieked and run into the house, where she told the women-servants, who all together set up a shrieking through the house. Someone, after the mistress was thus terrified, blurted out the dreadful truth. In an hour the Squire had lost his wife as well as his brother-in-law.
“ ‘At the inquest, the Squire gave the principal evidence. He said that he walked with his brother-in-law as far as the wood, when he turned back.’ ”
“Not ‘as far as the wood.’ He said that on entering the wood he remembered an appointment, and turned back. Remembering the evidence of the boy and your timing of the distance, we must give him some little time in the wood.”