Part 6 (2/2)

”To bury yourself in these wilds!” remarked Miss Raven. ”Doesn't it seem quite out of the world here--after that?”

Dr. Lorrimore glanced at Mr. Raven and showed a set of very white teeth in a meaning smile. He was a tall, good-looking man, dark of eye and hair; moustached and bearded; apparently under forty years of age--yet, at each temple, there was the faintest trace of silvery grey. A rather notable man, too, I thought, and one who was evidently scrupulous about his appearance--yet his faultlessly cut frock suit of raven black, his glossy linen, and smart boots looked more fitted to a Harley Street consulting-room than to the Northumbrian cottages and farmsteads amongst which his lot must necessarily be cast. He transferred his somewhat gleaming, rather mechanical smile to Miss Raven.

”On the contrary,” he said in a quiet almost bantering tone, ”this seems--quite gay. I was in a part of India where one had to travel long distances to see a white patient--and one doesn't count the rest.

And--I bought this practice, knowing it to be one that would not make great demands on my time, so that I could devote myself a good deal to certain scientific pursuits in which I am deeply interested. No!--I don't feel out of the world, Miss Raven, I a.s.sure you.”

”He has promised to put in some of his spare time with me, when he wants company,” said Mr. Raven. ”We shall have much in common.”

”Dark secrets of a dark country!” remarked Dr. Lorrimore, with a sly glance at Miss Raven. ”Over our cheroots!”

Then, excusing himself from Mr. Raven's pressing invitation to stay to lunch, he took himself off, and my host, his niece, and myself continued our investigations. These lasted until the lunch hour--they afforded us abundant scope for conversation, too, and kept us from any reference to the grim tragedy of the early morning.

Mr. Cazalette made no appearance at lunch. I heard a footman inform Miss Raven, in answer to her inquiry, that he had just taken Mr.

Cazalette's beef-tea to his room and that he required nothing else.

And I did not see him again until late that afternoon, when, as the rest of us were gathered about the tea-table in the hall, before a cheery fire, he suddenly appeared, a smile of grim satisfaction on his queer old face. He took his usual cup of tea and dry biscuit and sat down in silence. But by that time I was getting inquisitive.

”Well, Mr. Cazalette,” I said, ”have you brought your photographic investigations to any successful conclusion?”

”Yes, Mr. Cazalette,” chimed in Miss Raven, whom I had told of the old man's odd fancy about the scratches on the lid of the tobacco-box.

”We're dying to know if you've found out anything. Have you--and what is it?”

He gave us a knowing glance over the rim of his tea-cup.

”Aye!” he said. ”Young folks are full of curiosity. But I'm not going to say what I've discovered, nor how far my investigations have gone.

Ye must just die a bit more, Miss Raven, and maybe when ye're on the point of demise I'll resuscitate ye with the startling news of my great achievements.”

I knew by that time that when Mr. Cazalette relapsed into his native Scotch he was most serious, and that his bantering tone was a.s.sumed as a cloak. It was clear that we were not going to get anything out of him just then. But Mr. Raven tried another tack, fis.h.i.+ng for information.

”You really think those marks were made of a purpose, Cazalette?” he suggested. ”You think they were intentional?”

”I'll not say anything at present,” answered Mr. Cazalette. ”The experiment is in course of process. But I'll say this, as a student of this sort of thing--yon murderer was far from the ordinary.”

Miss Raven shuddered a little.

”I hope the man who did it is not hanging about!” she said.

Mr. Cazalette shook his head with a knowing gesture.

”Ye need have no fear of that, la.s.sie!” he remarked. ”The man that did it had put a good many miles between himself and his victim long before Middlebrook there made his remarkable discovery.”

”Now, how do you know that, Mr. Cazalette?” I asked, feeling a bit restive under the old fellow's c.o.c.k-sureness. ”Isn't that guess-work?”

”No!” said he. ”It's deduction--and common-sense. Mine's a nature that's full of both those highly admirable qualities, Middlebrook.”

He went away then, as silently as he had come. And when, a few minutes later, I, too, went off to some preliminary work that I had begun in the library, I began to think over the first events of the morning, and to wonder if I ought not to ask Mr. Cazalette for some explanation of the incident of the yew-hedge. He had certainly secreted a piece of blood-stained, mud-discoloured linen in that hedge for an hour or so.

Why? Had it anything to do with the crime? Had he picked it up on the beach when he went for his dip? Why was he so secretive about it? And why, if it was something of moment, had he not carried it straight to his own room in the house, instead of hiding it in the hedge while he evidently went back to the house and made his toilet? The circ.u.mstance was extraordinary, to say the least of it.

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