“By a blow on the head, the police believe. Plummer says that there are lots of marks near the edge of the lake as though a struggle took place.”
“Extraordinary!” I ejaculated. “You say he was quite dead when discovered. Was a doctor called?”
“Yes; the police surgeon, Doctor Douglas. He declared that the poor Colonel had been murdered, and had been dead several hours.”
“Is there no suspicion of the assassin?” I inquired, as the thought of the man whom I had watched in the Park dashed through my brain.
“None whatever,” he answered. “The Colonel was very popular everywhere, and was always good to the poor. It’s his wife who isn’t liked; she’s a rum un’, they say.”
“Where was the body found?” I inquired, when I had seated myself at the table while he had taken up a position before the empty fireplace to continue gossiping.
“Ah!” he said, “you wouldn’t, of course, know the spot, for you’ve never been in the park. There’s a path which leads across the grass at the back of the house through some thickets, and, skirting the lake, crosses the brook by a little bridge. It was just by that bridge that the poor fellow was found. They think that just as he had crossed the bridge he was struck down, and then fell backwards into the lake.”
“Ah! I understand,” I said. “Let’s hope that the detectives will discover something when they arrive. It was evidently a most dastardly bit of work.”
The man’s remark that I had no knowledge of the spot where the body was found aroused me to a sense of my own position. If it were known that I had entered the park that night, might not a serious suspicion fall upon me?
I recollected how, as I had crossed the bridge, I had heard distinctly a short cough. The murderer was, without doubt, lurking there when I had passed.