“Give it to her, of course. I’ll come up to the Hall when I come back. I ought to have given it to her last night.”
“Had you done so that man’s life might perhaps have been saved—who knows?”
“Ah!” he sighed in regret. “I never thought of that. I didn’t know it was of such importance. You see the missus is in bed with a cold, and I couldn’t leave the house in charge o’ the girl. They were a bit merry last night after Jim Cook’s weddin’.”
I was anxious to obtain possession of the mysterious letter, but I already knew that he would only deliver it to Lolita personally. Yet I had no wish that the man Warr should come to the Hall just at the moment when the startling news of the tragedy would create a sensation throughout the whole household. If he were to deliver the letter, it should not be before the first horror of the affair had died down. Therefore I made excuse to him that her ladyship was going over very early to Lady Sudborough’s to join a picnic and would not be back before evening.
“Very well,” he answered. “I’ll come up then.” And mounting his machine he spun away down the hill.
Next moment, from where I stood, I distinguished a trap approaching along a bend in the road. Three men were in it, two of them being in uniform—the police from Northampton.
Having no desire that they should know that I had returned to the spot to efface those tell-tale marks, the only way to avoid them was to spring over the wall again into the park, which I did without a moment’s hesitation, crouching down until they had passed, and then crossed the corner of the park and entered the Monk’s Wood, a thick belt of forest through which ran a footpath which joined the road about a mile further down. The way I had taken to Sibberton was a circuitous one, it was true, but at any rate I should avoid being seen in the vicinity of the spot where the tragedy was enacted.
Walking forward along the dim forest path covered with moss and wild flowers, where the rising sun glinted upon the grey trunks of the trees and the foliage above rustled softly in the wind, I was sorely puzzled over the innkeeper’s manner when I had put that direct question to him.
Notwithstanding his denial, I felt convinced that he had recognised the dead man.
I had almost gained the outer edge of the wood, walking noiselessly over the carpet of moss, when of a sudden the sound of voices caused me to start and halt.