The Yorkshireman turned suddenly towards his friend, and leaning upon Talbot Bulstrode’s shoulder, wept for the second time during that woodland ramble.
“May God in heaven bless you for this, Talbot!” he cried passionately. “Ah, my love, my dear, what a wretch I have been to you! but Heaven is my witness that, even in my worst agony of doubt and horror, my love has never lessened. It never could!—it never could!”
“John, old fellow,” said Mr. Bulstrode, cheerfully, “perhaps, instead of talking this nonsense, which leaves me entirely in the dark as to everything that has happened since you left London, you will do me the favour to enlighten me as to the cause of these foolish suspicions.”
They had reached the ruined summerhouse and the pool of stagnant water, on the margin of which James Conyers had met with his death. Mr. Bulstrode seated himself upon a pile of broken timber, while John Mellish paced up and down the smooth patch of turf between the summerhouse and the water, and told, disjointedly enough, the story of the finding of the pistol, which had been taken out of his room.
“I saw that pistol upon the day of the murder,” he said. “I took particular notice of it; for I was cleaning my guns that morning, and I left them all in confusion while I went down to the lodge to see the trainer. When I came back—I—”
“Well, what then?”
“Aurora had been setting my guns in order.”
“You argue, therefore, that your wife took the pistol?”
John looked piteously at his friend; but Talbot’s grave smile reassured him.
“No one else had permission to go into the room,” he answered. “I keep my papers and accounts there, you know; and it’s an understood thing that none of the servants are allowed to go there, except when they clean the room.”
“To be sure! But the room is not locked, I suppose?”
“Locked! of course not!”
“And the windows—which open to the ground—are sometimes left open, I dare say?”
“Almost always in such weather as this.”
“Then, my dear John, it may be just possible that someone who had not permission to enter the room did, nevertheless, enter it, for the purpose of abstracting this pistol. Have you asked Aurora why she took upon herself to rearrange your guns?—she had never done such a thing before, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, very often. I’m rather in the habit of leaving them about after cleaning them; and my darling understands all about them as well as I do. She has often put them away for me.”
“Then there was nothing particular in her doing so upon the day of the murder. Have you asked her how long she was in your room, and whether she can remember seeing this particular pistol, among others?’
“Ask her!” exclaimed John; “how could I ask her, when—”
“When you have been mad enough to suspect her. No, my poor old friend; you made the same mistake that I committed at Felden. You presupposed the guilt of the woman you loved; and you were too great a coward to investigate the evidence upon which your suspicions were built. Had I been wise enough, instead of blindly questioning this poor bewildered girl, to tell her plainly what it was that I suspected, the incontrovertible truth would have flashed out of her angry eyes, and one indignant denial would have told me how basely I had wronged her. You shall not make the mistake that I made, John. You must go frankly and fearlessly to the wife you love, tell her of the suspicion that overclouds her fame, and implore her to help you to the uttermost of her power in unravelling the mystery of this man’s death. The assassin must be found, John; for so long as he remains undiscovered, you and your wife will be the victims of every penny-a-liner who finds himself at a loss for a paragraph.”
“Yes,” Mr. Mellish answered bitterly, “the papers have been hard at it already; and there’s been a fellow hanging about the place for the last few days whom I’ve had a very strong inclination to thrash. Some reporter, I suppose, come to pick up information.”
“I suppose so,” Talbot answered thoughtfully; “what sort of a man was he?”
“A decent-looking fellow enough; but a Londoner, I fancy, and—stay!” exclaimed John suddenly, “there’s a man coming towards us from the turnstile; and unless I’m considerably mistaken, it’s the very fellow.”
Mr. Mellish was right.
The wood was free to any foot-passenger who pleased to avail himself of the pleasant shelter of spreading beeches, and the smooth carpet of mossy turf, rather than tramp wearily upon the dusty highway.
The stranger advancing from the turnstile was a decent-looking person, dressed in dark tight-fitting clothes, and making no unnecessary or ostentatious display of linen, for his coat was buttoned tightly to the chin. He looked at Talbot and John as he passed them—not insolently, or even inquisitively, but with one brightly rapid and searching glance, which seemed to take in the most minute details in the appearance of both gentlemen. Then, walking on a few paces, he stopped and looked thoughtfully at the pond, and the bank above it.
“This is the place, I think, gentlemen?” he said, in a frank and rather free-and-easy manner.
Talbot returned his look with interest.
“If you mean the place where the murder was committed, it is,” he said.
“Ah, I understood so,” answered the stranger, by no means abashed.
He looked at the bank, regarding it, now from one point, now from another, like some skilful upholsterer taking the measure of a piece of furniture. Then walking slowly round the pond, he seemed to plumb the depth of the stagnant water with his small gray eyes.
Talbot Bulstrode watched the man as he took this mental photograph of the place. There was a businesslike composure
