“Yes, undoubtedly,” I said quickly. “We must return there, get to see her in secret, and hear her story.”
“The worst of it is that as I was there at night, just at a time when the moon was hidden behind the clouds, I doubt whether I’ll be able to recognise the place again.”
“Let’s try,” I suggested eagerly, springing up. “Don’t let us lose an instant. I have a suspicion that we’re on the track of the truth.”
Chapter Sixteen.
The Story of Mr Thomas Hayes.
By half-past four we had covered the eleven miles that lay between the old-world village of Sibberton and that point beyond Brigstock on the Oundle road which skirts that dense wood called Cherry Lap.
Both of us were well-mounted, the doctor on his bay hunter, while I rode my own cob, and our pace had all along been a pretty hard one. Being both followers of hounds we knew all the bridle-roads across Geddington Chase, and over the rich pastures between them and the road at Cat’s Head. Beyond Brigstock, however, we never hunted, for at that point our country joined that of the Fitzwilliam Hunt. Therefore, beyond Cherry Lap the neighbourhood was unfamiliar to both of us.
We hacked along on the grass by the side of the broad highway for a couple of miles or so, but the doctor failed to recognise the field by which he had turned off on the previous night. By-roads are deceptive in the moonlight.