“I suppose you read all about it in the papers?” I said, not quite understanding his motive.
“George showed me some of the accounts. Most extraordinary affair—wasn’t it? They don’t even know the poor fellow’s name, do they?”
“The police axe in ignorance of it as far as I know,” was my response.
“But explain to me the exact position in which you found him,” he urged, leaving off playing, leaning with his back against the stone mantelshelf, and drawing heavily at his cigar. “I take a keen interest in such matters as this. Out after big game, we become almost like detectives so necessary it is to follow clues and footprints.”
“Well,” I said, “I simply heard a cry in the darkness, and got Warr, the publican from the village, to help me to search—and we found him.”
“He was dead, of course—quite dead?” he asked eagerly, as though, it seemed, in fear that the victim had still been conscious and had spoken.
“Quite,” I replied, still much puzzled. He had himself invited me to billiards, and it seemed for the purpose of obtaining from me the exact details of the discovery. “He had been struck a cowardly blow in the back which the doctors declared must have proved fatal at once.”
“You heard his cry?” he said, looking me straight in the face. “It was that which attracted you?”
“I heard a cry,” was my answer.
“Ah! Then you didn’t recognise the voice?”