Part 24 (2/2)

”No; he played billiards before,” she answered. Then readily added, ”On leaving me he returned to the billiard-room to fetch his cigar-case. It was then he wished Mr Durrant good-night.”

”Did he tell him, also, that he was unwell?”

”Yes, I believe so. But Mr Durrant sent a card of sympathy to my room and left without seeing me. I therefore only know this by hearsay from the servants.”

”You have a stepson--Lieutenant Chetwode. Where was he?”

”With me in the drawing-room. Ah! here he comes.” And at that moment a thin, dark-haired, well-set-up young man entered, eyeing us with an inquiring glance.

This, then, was my wife's lover.

Briefly the widow explained who we were, and, in reply to Bullen's questions, the dead man's son described how his father had managed to slip out un.o.bserved, and how his absence had pa.s.sed unnoticed until the awful discovery had been made in the morning.

”You have no suspicion that he had any enemy, I suppose?” the detective asked.

”None whatever. The terrible affair is a most profound mystery.”

”Yes,” said Bullen reflectively, his grey eyes fixed upon those of the widow; ”it's a mystery we must try to solve.”

”I hope you will,” the young man exclaimed. ”My father has fallen beneath the hands of some cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin concealed in those bushes down by the lake--he was the victim of the revenge of some person unknown.”

”What makes you think the motive was revenge?” inquired the detective, quick to scent any clue.

The widow and her stepson exchanged rapid glances. I was watching, and it occurred to me that some secret understanding existed between them.

My friend of the _Red Lion_ had declared that they were enemies, but to me it certainly appeared as though they were acting in complete accord.

”Oh,” responded Cyril Chetwode, rather lamely, ”I merely suppose that.”

”Revenge for what?”

”Ah! if we only knew the reason it would not be difficult to find the murderer,” answered the man who loved my wife. ”It may be that some person sought revenge for an imaginary grievance.”

”But why was the Colonel walking at that lonely spot at that hour? He must have had an object. It looks suspiciously as though he went to keep a secret appointment. The excuse that he was ill seems to have been made with a view to securing his room from intruders who might disturb him.”

”He may have kept an appointment,” his son replied. ”But only he himself could tell us the truth.”

The detective acquiesced, and after some further conversation, in which I joined, he rose, and pa.s.sing through into the library, commenced an examination of the papers lying on the writing-table. With my rival in the affections of the woman who was my wife, I a.s.sisted him, while the widow stood behind us watching, her face pale and anxious and her nervous hands trembling.

She was in fear. Of that I felt absolutely convinced. But what discovery did she dread?

While we were bending, examining the contents of one of the drawers, which was full of papers relating to the Colonel's duty as a justice of the peace--for it was here that he performed his judicial work--his widow stood behind me, and, with a quick movement, sidled up to her stepson. The next instant it occurred to me that she had pa.s.sed something to him; but, pretending to be engrossed in the papers, I made no sign that I had observed their rapid exchange.

”Have you found anything?” she inquired calmly, after a few moments.

”No; nothing, unfortunately,” Bullen responded. And then, having searched the room from top to bottom, suggested a move to the Colonel's bedroom.

Here the search, both of the clothes in his wardrobe and of the room wherein he usually slept, likewise proved fruitless. After twenty minutes or so, however, I contrived, while the others were busy turning over the dead man's effects, to slip back to the library. Young Chetwode had, at the moment when the suspicious movement had been made behind me, stood with his back to the black marble mantelshelf, and it was to examine this that I returned. While doing so I suddenly found a crack between the wall and the upright marble support, where the plaster had dried out by the heat of the winter fires, and, peering within, I saw something concealed there.

<script>