Kitabı oku: «Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XI
By the side of the little chattering stream that flowed through the bit of woodland where Mr. Nippers and his associates had come upon them, they found Dollops, with his legs drawn up, his arms folded across his knees and his forehead resting upon them, sleeping serenely over the embers of a burnt-out fire. He was still “making music,” but of a kind which needed no assistance from a mouth harmonica to produce it.
They awoke him and told him of the sudden change in the programme and of the need for haste in carrying it out.
“Oh, so help me! Them Apaches, eh? And that foreign josser, Count What’s-his-name, too?” said he, rubbing his eyes and blinking sleepily. “Right you are, guv’ner! Gimme two seconds to get the cobwebs out of my thinking-box and I’m ready to face marching orders as soon as you like. My hat! though, but this is a startler. I can understand wot them Apache johnnies has got against you, sir, of course; but wot that Mauravanian biscuit is getting after you for beats me. Wot did you ever do to the blighter, guv’ner? Trip him up in some little bit of crooked business, sir, and ‘did him down,’ as the ’Mericans say?”
“Something like that,” returned Cleek. “Don’t waste time in talking. Simply get together such things as we shall need and let us be off about our business as soon as possible.”
Dollops obeyed instructions upon both points – obeyed them, indeed, with such alacrity that he shut up like an oyster forthwith, dived into the caravan and bounced out again, and within five minutes of the time he had been told of the necessity for starting, had started, and was forging away with the others over the dark, still moor and facing cheerily the prospect of a thirty-mile walk to Cumberlandshire.
All through the night they pressed onward thus – the two men walking shoulder to shoulder and the boy at their heels – over vast stretches of moorland where bracken and grass hung heavy and glittering under their weight of dew; down the craggy sides of steep gullies where the spring freshets had quickened mere trickles into noisy water-splashes that spewed over the rocks, to fall into chuckling, froth-filled pools below; along twisting paths; through the dark, still woodland stretches, and thence out upon the wild, wet moor again, with the wind in their faces and the sky all a-prickle with steadily dimming stars. And by and by the mist-wrapped moon dropped down out of sight, the worn-out night dwindled and died, and steadily brightening Glory went blushing up the east to flower the pathway for the footfalls of the Morning.
But as yet the farthermost outposts of Cumberland were miles beyond the range of vision, so that the long tramp was by no means ended, and, feeling the necessity for covering as much ground as possible while the world at large was still in what Dollops was wont to allude to as “the arms of Murphy’s house,” the little party continued to press onward persistently.
By four o’clock they were again off the moors and in the depths of craggy gorges; by five they were on the borders of a deep, still tarn, and had called a halt to light a fire and get things out of the bag which Dollops carried – things to eat and to drink and to wear – and were enjoying a plunge in the ice-cold water the while the coffee was boiling; and by six – gorged with food and soothed by tobacco – they were lying sprawled out on the fragrant earth and blinking drowsily while their boots were drying before the fire. And after that there was a long hiatus until Cleek’s voice rapped out saying sharply, “Well, I’ll be dashed! Rouse up there, you lazy beggars. Do you know that it’s half-past twelve and we’ve been sleeping for hours?”
They knew it then, be assured, and were up and on their way again with as little delay as possible. Rested and refreshed, they made such good time that two o’clock found them in the Morcam Abbey district, just over the borders of Cumberland, and, with appetites sharpened for luncheon, bearing down on a quaint little hostlery whose signboard announced it as the Rose and Thistle.
“Well, there’s hospitality if you like,” said Cleek, as, at their approach, a cheery-faced landlady bobbed up at an open window and, seeing them, bobbed away again and ran round to welcome them with smiles and curtseys delivered from the arch of a vine-bowered door.
“Welcome, gentlemen, welcome,” beamed she as they came up and joined her. “But however in the world did you manage to get over here so soon? – the train not being due at Shepperton Old Cross until five-and-twenty past one, and that a good mile and a quarter away as the crow flies. However, better too early than too late – Major Norcross and Lady Mary being already here and most anxious to meet you.”
As it happened that neither Cleek nor Mr. Narkom had any personal acquaintance with the lady and gentleman mentioned, it was so clearly a case of mistaken identity that the superintendent had it on the tip of his tongue to announce the fact, when there clashed out the sound of a door opening and shutting rapidly, a clatter of hasty footsteps along the passage, and presently there came into view the figure of a bluff, hearty, florid-faced man of about five-and-forty, who thrust the landlady aside and threw a metaphorical bombshell by exclaiming excitedly:
“My dear sir, I never was so delighted. Talk about English slowness. Why, this is prompt enough to satisfy a Yankee. I never dispatched my letter to you until late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Narkom, and – by the way, which is Mr. Narkom, and which that amazing Mr. Cleek? Or, never mind – perhaps that clever johnnie will be coming later; you can tell me all about that afterward. For the present, come along. Let’s not keep Lady Mary waiting – she’s anxious. This way, please.”
Here – as Mr. Narkom had lost no time in acknowledging his identity, it being clear that no mistake had been made after all – here he caught the superintendent by the arm, whisked him down the passage, and throwing open the door at the end of it, announced excitedly, “All right, Mary. The Yard’s answered – the big reward’s caught ’em, as I knew it would – and here’s Narkom. That chap Cleek will come by a later train, no doubt.”
The response to this came from an unexpected quarter. Of a sudden the man he had left standing at the outer door, under the impression that he was in no way connected with the superintendent, but merely a gentleman who had reached the inn at the same time, came down the passage to the open door, brushed past him into the room, and announced gravely, “Permit me to correct an error, please, Major. The ‘man Cleek’ is not coming later – he is here, and very much at your and Lady Mary Norcross’ service, believe me. I have long known the name of Major Seton Norcross as one which stands high in the racing world – as that, indeed, of the gentleman who owns the finest stud in the kingdom and whose filly, Highland Lassie, is first favourite for the forthcoming Derby – and I now have the honour of meeting the gentleman himself, it seems.”
The effect of this was somewhat disconcerting. For, as he concluded it, he put out his hand and rested it upon Mr. Narkom’s shoulder, whereat Lady Mary half rose from her seat, only to sit down again suddenly and look round at her liege lord with uplifted eyebrows and lips slightly parted. Afterward she declared of the two men standing side by side in that familiar manner: “One reminded me of an actor trying to play the part of a person of distinction, and the other of a person of distinction trying to play the part of an ordinary actor and not quite able to keep what he really was from showing through the veneer of what he was trying to be.”
The major, however, was too blunt to bottle up his sentiments at any time, and being completely bowled over in the present instance put them into bluff, outspoken, characteristic words.
“Oh, gum games!” he blurted out. “If you really are Cleek – ”
“I really am. Mr. Narkom will stand sponsor for that.”
“But, good lud, man! Oh, look here, you know, this is all tommyrot! What under God’s heaven has brought a chap like you down to this sort of thing?”
“Opinions differ upon that score, Major,” said Cleek quietly. “So far from being ‘brought down,’ it is my good friend, Mr. Narkom here, who has brought me up to it – and made me his debtor for life.”
“Debtor nothing! Don’t talk rubbish. As if it were possible for a gentleman not to recognize a gentleman!”
“It would not be so easy, I fear, if he were a good actor – and you have just done me the compliment of indirectly telling me that I must be one. It is very nice of you but – may we not let it go at that? I fancy from what I hear that I, too, shall soon be in the position to pay compliments, Major. I hear on every side that Highland Lassie is sure to carry off the Derby – in fact that, unless a miracle occurs, there’ll be no horse ‘in it’ but her.”
Here both the major and his wife grew visibly excited.
“Gad, sir!” exclaimed he, in a voice of deep despair. “I’m afraid you will have to amend that statement so that it may read, ‘unless a miracle occurs there will be every horse in it but her’ – every blessed one from Dawson-Blake’s Tarantula, the second favourite, down to the last ‘also ran’ of the lot.”
“Good heavens! The filly hasn’t ‘gone wrong’ suddenly, has she?”
“She’s done more than ‘gone wrong’ – she’s gone altogether! Some beastly, low-lived cur of a horse thief broke into the stables the night before last and stole her – stole her, sir, body and bones – and there’s not so much as a hoofprint to tell what became of her.”
“Well, I’m blest!”
“Are you? B’gad, then, you’re about the only one who knows about it that is! For as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve not only lost the best filly in England but the best trainer as well: and the brute that carried off the one got at the other at the same time, dash him!”
“What do you mean by ‘got at’ the trainer, Major? Did the man take a bribe and ‘sell’ you that way?”
“What, Tom Farrow? Never in God’s world! Not that kind of a chap, by George! The man that offered Tom Farrow a bribe would spend the rest of the week in bed – gad, yes! A more faithful chap never drew the breath of life. God only knows when or how the thing happened, but Farrow was found on the moor yesterday morning – quite unconscious and at death’s door. He had been bludgeoned in the most brutal manner imaginable. Not only was his right arm broken, but his skull was all but crushed in. There was concussion of the brain, of course. Poor fellow, he can’t speak a word, and the chances are that he never will be able to do so again.”
“Bad business, that,” declared Cleek, looking grave. “Any idea of who may possibly have been the assailant? Local police picked up anything in the nature of a clue?”
“The local police know nothing whatsoever about it. I have not reported the case to them.”
“Not reported – H’m! rather unusual course, that, to pursue, isn’t it? When a man has his place broken into, a valuable horse stolen, and his trainer all but murdered, one would naturally suppose that his first act would be to set the machinery of the law in motion without an instant’s delay. That is, unless – H’m! Yes! Just so.”
“What is ‘just so’?” inquired the major eagerly. “You seem to have hit upon some sort of an idea right at the start. Mind telling me what it is?”
“Certainly not. I could imagine that when a man keeps silent about such a thing at such a time there is a possibility that he has a faint idea of who the criminal may be and that he has excellent reasons for not wishing the world at large to share that idea. In other words, that he would sooner lose the value of the animal fifty times over than have the crime brought home to the person he suspects.”
CHAPTER XII
Lady Mary made a faint moaning sound. The major’s face was a study.
“I don’t know whether you are a wizard or not, Mr. Cleek,” he said, after a moment; “but you have certainly hit upon the facts of the matter. It is for that very reason that I have refrained from making the affair public. It is bad enough that Lady Mary and I should have our suspicions regarding the identity of the – er – person implicated without letting others share them. There’s Dawson-Blake for one. If he knew, he’d move heaven and earth to ruin him.”
“Dawson-Blake?” repeated Cleek. “Pardon, but will that be the particular Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake the millionaire brewer who achieved a knighthood in the last ‘Honours List’ and whose horse, Tarantula, is second favourite for the coming Derby?”
“Yes, the very man. He is almost what you might call a neighbour of ours, Mr. Cleek. His place, Castle Claverdale, is just over the border line of Northumberland and about five miles distant from Morcan Abbey. His stables are, if anything, superior to my own; and we both use the intervening moorland as a training ground. Also, it was Dawson-Blake’s daughter that Lieutenant Chadwick played fast and loose with. Jilted her, you know – threw her over at the eleventh hour and married a chorus girl who had nothing to bless herself with but a pretty face and a long line of lodging-house ancestry. Not that Miss Dawson-Blake lost anything by getting rid of such a man before she committed the folly of tying herself to him for life, but her father never forgave Lieutenant Chadwick and would spend a million for the satisfaction of putting him behind bars.”
“I see. And this Lieutenant Chadwick is – whom may I ask?”
“The only son of my elder and only sister, Mr. Cleek,” supplied Lady Mary with a faint blush. “She committed the folly of marrying her music master when I was but a little girl, and my father died without ever looking at her again. Subsequently, her husband deserted her and went – she never learnt where, to the day of her death. While she lived, however, both my brother, Lord Chevelmere, and I saw that she never wanted for anything. We also supplied the means to put her son through Sandhurst after we had put him through college, and hoped that he would repay us by achieving honour and distinction. It was a vain hope. He achieved nothing but disgrace. Shortly after his deplorable marriage with the theatrical person for whom he threw over Miss Dawson-Blake – and who in turn threw him over when she discovered what a useless encumbrance he was – he was cashiered from the army, and has ever since been a hanger-on at race meetings – the consort of touts, billiard markers, card sharpers, and people of that sort. I had not seen him for six years, when he turned up suddenly in this neighbourhood three days ago and endeavoured to scrape acquaintance with one of the Abbey grooms.”
“And under an assumed name, Mr. Cleek,” supplemented the major somewhat excitedly. “He was calling himself John Clark and was trying to wheedle information regarding Highland Lassie out of my stable-boys. Fortunately, Lady Mary caught sight of him without being seen, and at once gave orders that he was to be turned off the premises, and never allowed to come near them again. He was known, however, to be in this neighbourhood up to dusk on the following evening, but he has never been seen since Highland Lassie disappeared. You know now, perhaps, why I have elected to conduct everything connected with this affair with the utmost secrecy. Little as we desire to be in any way associated with such a man, we cannot but remember that he is connected with us by ties of blood, and unless Farrow dies of his injuries – which God forbid! we will hush the thing up, cost what it may. All that I want is to get the animal back – not to punish the man: if, indeed, he be the guilty party; for there is really no actual proof of that. But if Dawson-Blake knew, it would be different. He would move heaven and earth to get the convict’s ‘broad arrow’ on him and to bring disgrace upon everybody connected with the man.”
“H’m, I see!” said Cleek, puckering up his brows and thoughtfully stroking his chin. “So that, naturally, there is – with this added to the rivalry of the two horses – no very good blood existing between Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake and yourself?”
“No, there is not. If, apart from these things, Mr. Cleek, you want my private opinion of the man, it can be summed up in the word ‘Bounder.’ There is not one instinct of the gentleman about him. He is simply a vulgar, money-gilded, low-minded cad, and I wouldn’t put it beyond him to be mixed up in this disappearance of the filly himself but that I know Chadwick was about the place; and for there to be anything between Chadwick and him is as impossible as it is for the two poles to come together, or for oil to assimilate with water. That is the one thing in this world that Dawson-Blake would not do under any circumstances whatsoever. Beyond that, I put nothing beneath the man – nothing too despicable for him to attempt in the effort to gain his own end and aim. He races not for the sport of the thing, but for the publicity, the glory of getting talked about, and of making the vulgar stare. He wants the blue ribbon of the turf for the simple fame of the thing; and he’d buy it if buying it were possible, and either bribes or trickery could carry off the race.”
“H’m! That’s a sweeping assertion, Major.”
“But made upon a basis of absolute fact, Mr. Cleek. He has twice endeavoured to buy Farrow to desert me by an offer of double wages and a pension; and, failing that, only last week he offered my jockey £10,000 cash on the nail to slip off over to France on the night before Derby Day, and promised him a further five thousand if Tarantula carried off the race.”
“Oho!” said Cleek, in two different tones; and with a look of supremest contempt. “So our Tinplate Knight is that sort of a sportsman, is he, the cad? And having failed to get hold of the rider– H’m! Yes. It is possible – perhaps. Chadwick’s turning up at such a time might be a mere coincidence – a mere tout’s trick to get inside information beforehand, or – Well, you never can tell. Suppose, Major, you give me the facts from the beginning. When was the animal’s loss discovered – and how? Let me have the full particulars, please.”
The major sighed and dropped heavily into a chair.
“For an affair of such far-reaching consequences, Mr. Cleek,” he said gloomily, “it is singularly bald of what might be called details, I am afraid; and beyond what I have already told you there is really very little more to tell. When or how the deed was committed, it is impossible to decide beyond the indefinite statement that it happened the night before last, at some time after half-past nine in the evening, when the stable-boy, Dewlish, before going home, carried a pail of water at Farrow’s request into the building where Highland Lassie’s stall is located, and five o’clock the next morning when Captain MacTavish strolled into the stables and found the mare missing.”
“A moment, please. Who is Captain MacTavish? And why should the gentleman be strolling about the Abbey stable-yard at five o’clock in the morning?”
“Both questions can be answered in a few words. Captain MacTavish is a friend who is stopping with us. He is a somewhat famous naturalist. Writes articles and stories on bird and animal life for the magazines. It is his habit to be up and out hunting for ‘specimens’ and things of that sort every morning just about dawn. At five he always crosses the stable yard on his way to the dairy where he goes for a glass of fresh milk before breakfast.”
“I see. Captain a young man or an old one?”
“Oh, young, of course. About two or three and thirty, I should say. Brother of a deceased army pal of mine. Been stopping with us for the past two months. Very brilliant and very handsome chap – universal favourite wherever he goes.”
“Thanks. Now just one more question before you proceed, please: About the trainer Farrow getting the stable-boy to carry in that pail of water. Would not that be a trifle unusual at such a time of the night?”
“I don’t know. Yes – perhaps it would. I never looked at it in that light before.”
“Very likely not. Stables would be closed and all the grooms, et cetera, off duty for the night at that hour, would they not?”
“Yes. That is, unless Farrow had reason for asking one of them to help him with something. That’s what he did, by the way, with the boy, Dewlish.”
“Just so. Any idea what he wanted with that pail of water at that hour of the night? He couldn’t be going to ‘water’ one of the horses, of course, and it is hardly likely that he intended to take on a stableman’s duties and wash up the place.”
“Oh, gravy – no! He’s a trainer, not a slosh-bucket. I pay him eighteen hundred a year and give him a cottage besides.”
“Married man or a single one?”
“Single. A widower. About forty. Lost his wife two years ago. Rather thought he was going to take another one shortly, from the way things looked. But of late he and Maggie McFarland don’t seem, for some reason or another, to be hitting it off together so well as they did.”
“Who’s Maggie McFarland, please?”
“One of the dairymaids. A little Scotch girl from Nairn who came into service at the Abbey about a twelvemonth ago.”
“H’m! I see. Then the filly isn’t the only ‘Highland Lassie’ in the case, it would seem. Pardon? Oh, nothing. Merely a weak attempt to say something smart, that’s all. Don’t suppose that Maggie McFarland could by any possibility throw light upon the subject of that pail of water, do you, Major?”
“Good lud, no! Of course she couldn’t. What utter rot. But see here – come to think of it now, perhaps I can. It’s as like as not that he wanted it to wash himself with before he went over to the shoer’s at Shepperton Old Cross with Chocolate Maid. I forgot to tell you, Mr. Cleek, that ever since Dawson-Blake made that attempt to buy him off, Farrow became convinced that it wouldn’t be safe to leave Highland Lassie unguarded night or day for fear of that cad’s hirelings getting at her in some way or another, so he closed up his cottage and came to live in the rooms over the filly’s stable, so as to be on the spot for whatever might or might not happen at any hour. He also bought a yapping little Scotch terrier that would bark if a match fell, and kept it chained up in the place with him. When the discovery of the filly’s disappearance was made that dog was found still attached to its chain, but as dead as Maria Martin. It had been poisoned. There was a bit of meat lying beside the body and it was literally smothered in strychnine.”
“Quite so. Keep strychnine about the place for killing rats, I suppose?”
“Yes, of course. They are a perfect pest about the granary and the fodder bins. But of course it wouldn’t be lying round loose – a deadly thing like that. Besides, there never was any kept in that particular section of the stables, so the dog couldn’t have got hold of it by accident. Then there’s another thing I ought to tell you, Mr. Cleek: Highland Lassie never was stabled with the rest of the stud. We have always kept her in one especial stable. There are just two whacking big box stalls in the place. She occupies one and Chocolate Maid the other. Chocolate Maid is Lady Mary’s personal property – a fine, blooded filly that will make a name for herself one of these days, I fancy. Dark-coated and smooth as a piece of sealskin, the beauty. To-day she is the only animal in that unlucky place. Yes, come to think of it, Mr. Cleek,” he added with a sort of sigh, “that is probably what the poor fellow wanted the pail of water for: to wash up and ride her over to the forge at Shepperton Old Cross.”
“Singular time to choose for such a proceeding, wasn’t it, Major? After half-past nine o’clock at night.”
“It would be if it were any other man and under any other circumstances. But remember! It is but three weeks to Derby Day and every hour of daylight is worth so much gold to us. Farrow knew that he could not spare a moment of it for any purpose; and he is most particular over the shoeing. Will see it done himself and direct the operation personally. Sort of mania with him. Wouldn’t let the best man that ever lived take one of the horses over for him. Go himself, no matter what inconvenience it put him to. Farrier at Shepperton Old Cross knows his little ‘fads and fancies’ and humours them at all times. Would open the forge and fire up for him if it were two o’clock in the morning.”
“I see. And did he take Chocolate Maid over there on that night, after all?”
“Yes. Lady Mary and I attended a whist drive at Farmingdale Priory that evening; but her ladyship was taken with a violent headache and we had to excuse ourselves and leave early. It would be about a quarter to eleven o’clock when we returned to the Abbey and met Farrow riding out through the gates on Chocolate Maid. We stopped and spoke to him. He was then going over to the shoer’s with the mare.”
“How long would it take him to make the journey?”
“Oh, about five-and-twenty minutes – maybe half an hour: certainly not more.”
“So then it would be about quarter-past eleven when he arrived at the farrier’s? I see. Any idea at what time he got back?”
“Not the ghost of one. In fact, we should never have known that he ever did get back – for nobody heard a sound of his return the whole night long – were it not that when Captain MacTavish crossed the stable-yard at five o’clock in the morning and, seeing the door ajar, looked in, he found Chocolate Maid standing in her stall, the dog dead, and Highland Lassie gone. Of course, Chocolate Maid being there after we had passed Farrow on the road with her was proof that he did return at some hour of the night, you know: though when it was, or why he should have gone out again, heaven alone knows. Personally, you know, I am of the opinion that Highland Lassie was stolen while he was absent; that, on returning he discovered the robbery and, following the trail, went out after the robbers, and, coming up with them, got his terrible injuries that way.”
“H’m! Yes! I don’t think! What ‘trail’ was he to find, please, when you just now told me that there wasn’t so much as a hoofprint to tell the tale? Or was that an error?”
“No, it wasn’t. The entire stable-yard is paved with red tiles, and we’ve had such an uncommon spell of dry weather lately that the earth of the surrounding country is baked as hard as a brickbat. An elephant couldn’t make a footmark upon it, much less a horse. But, gravy, man! instead of making the thing clearer, I’m blest if you’re not adding gloom to darkness, and rendering it more mysterious than ever. What under the four corners of heaven could Farrow have followed, then, if the ‘trail’ is to be eliminated entirely?”
“Maybe his own inclination, Major – maybe nothing at all,” said Cleek, enigmatically. “If your little theory of his returning and finding Highland Lassie stolen were a thing that would hold water I am inclined to think that Mr. Tom Farrow would have raised an alarm that you could hear for half a mile, and that if he had started out after the robbers he would have done so with a goodly force of followers at his heels and with all the lanterns and torches that could be raked and scraped together.”
“Good lud, yes! of course he would. I never thought of that. Did you, Mary? His whole heart and soul were bound up in the animal. If he had thought that anything had happened to her, if he had known that she was gone, a pitful of raging devils would have been spirits of meekness beside him. Man alive, you make my head whiz. For him to go off over the moor without word or cry at such a time – I say, Mr. Cleek! For God’s sake, what do you make of such a thing as that at such a time, eh?”
“Well, Major,” replied Cleek, “I hate to destroy any man’s illusions and to besmirch any man’s reputation, but —que voulez vous? If Mr. Tom Farrow went out upon that moor after the mare was stolen, and went without giving an alarm or saying a word to anybody, then in my private opinion your precious trainer is nothing in the world but a precious double-faced, double-dealing, dishonourable blackguard, who treacherously sold you to the enemy and got just what he deserved by way of payment.”
Major Norcross made no reply. He simply screwed up his lips until they were a mere pucker of little creases, and looked round at his wife with something of the pain and hopeless bewilderment of an unjustly scolded child.
“You know, Seton, it was what Captain MacTavish suggested,” ventured she, gently and regretfully. “And when two men of intellect – ” Then she sighed and let the rest go by default.
“Demmit, Mary, you don’t mean to suggest that I haven’t any, do you?”
“No, dear; but – ”
“Buts be blowed! Don’t you think I know a man when I run foul of him? And if ever there was a square-dealing, honest chap on this earth – Look here, Mr. Cleek. Gad! you may be a bright chap and all that, but you’ll have to give me something a blessed sight stronger than mere suspicion before you can make me believe a thing like that about Tom Farrow.”
“I am not endeavouring to make you believe it, Major. I am merely showing you what would certainly be the absolute truth of the matter if Tom Farrow had done what you suggested, and gone out on that moor alone and without a word or a cry when he discovered that the animal was stolen. But, my dear sir, I incline to the belief that he never did go out there after any person or any living thing whatsoever.”
“Then, dash it, sir, how in thunder are you going to explain his being there at all?”
“By the simple process, Major, of suggesting that he was on his way back to the Abbey at the time he encountered his unknown assailant. In other words, that he had not only never returned to the place after you and her ladyship saw him leaving it at a quarter to eleven, but was never permitted to do so.”
“Oh, come, I say! That’s laying it on too thick. How the dickens can you be sure of such a thing as that?”
“I’m not. I am merely laying before you the only two things possible to explain his presence there. One or the other of them is the plain and absolute truth. If the man went out there after the filly was stolen he is a scoundrel and a liar. If he is innocent, he met with his injuries on the way back to his quarters above Highland Lassie’s stall.”
