French allowed another twenty minutes to pass, then crawling out of the brushwood, he returned to the house. Burt again opened the door.
“I’m sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Burt,” he apologised, with his pleasant smile, “but I forgot to ask Colonel Domlio a question. Could I see him again just for a moment?”
“Colonel Domlio went out about half an hour ago, sir.”
“Ah, that’s very unfortunate.” French paused and looked disappointed, then brightened up. “Perhaps you could give me the information, if you would be so kind? I don’t want to have to come back another day.”
Burt was obviously disconcerted. But he tried to hide his feelings and reluctantly invited the caller into the study.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
French instantly became official and very stern. He swung round, frowning at the other and staring him full in the face. Then he said, harshly: “It is you I want to see, Burt. You lied to me this afternoon. I have come back to hear the truth.”
The man started and fell back a pace, while dismay and something like terror showed on his features.
“I don’t understand,” he stammered. “What do you mean?”
“It’s no use, Burt. You’ve given yourself away. You saw or heard something that night. What was it?”
“You’re mistaken, sir,” he declared, with a look of relief. “I neither saw nor heard anything. I swear it.” And then gaining confidence: “I don’t know what right you have to come here and tell me I was lying. I’m sure—”
“Cut it out,” French said, sharply. “Look here, Burt, do you want to be arrested on a charge of conspiracy to murder?”
Burt’s jaw dropped, but French did not give him time to reply.
“Because if you don’t you’ll tell what you know. Mr. Pyke was murdered that night, and perhaps Mr. Berlyn as well. They were not lost on the moor and it is believed they came here. If you keep back any information that might lead to the arrest of the murderer, it’s conspiracy—accessory after the fact. Ten years penal for that, Burt! Come along, now. Make up your mind whether you’re going to tell or face the judge.”
Burt’s face had grown pale, but he stuck to it that he had neither seen nor heard anything. French cut his protestations short.
“Fetch your wife,” he ordered.
The man’s manner as he heard these words, coupled with Mrs. Burt’s evident fear when originally questioned, assured French that this time he was on the right track. With evident unwillingness the woman appeared.
“Now, Mrs. Burt, I want to know what you heard or saw on the night of the tragedy. There is no use in telling me there was nothing. Now out with it!” And in terse language he explained what accessory after the fact meant, and its penalty.
Mrs. Burt was of less stern stuff than her husband. Under French’s examination she was soon in tears and presently, disjointed and in fragments, her story came out.
It appeared that on the night of the tragedy she slept badly, owing to some small indisposition. Shortly after she woke in considerable pain. She endured it for a time, then thinking that perhaps a hot drink would help her, she decided to go down to the kitchen and heat some milk. She got up quietly so as not to awake her husband, and left the bedroom. A quarter-moon dimly lit up the staircase and hall, so she carried no light. Just as she reached the head of the lower flight of stairs she heard the front door open. Startled, she drew back into the shadows, peering down at the same time into the hall. She was relieved to see that it was Colonel Domlio. He wore a hat and overcoat, and taking these off, he moved very quietly across the hall. Then she heard the click of the cloakroom door and slight sounds of movement as he approached the stairs. She slipped back into the passage which led to the servants’ quarters and in a few seconds the colonel’s bedroom door closed softly. This was a few minutes past .
It was unusual for the colonel to be out at night and her woman’s curiosity led her to examine the hat and coat. They were soaking wet. Rain was falling, but only very slightly, and she realised, therefore, that he must have been out for a considerable time.
She thought no more of the incident, and having had her hot milk, returned to bed. But she had not slept, and soon Sergeant Daw appeared with his story of the missing men. This excited but did not perturb her, but when, a few minutes later, she heard Colonel Domlio assuring the sergeant that he had spent the whole evening in his study until going up to bed, she felt that something was wrong. But it was not until the next day, when she had learnt the full details of what had happened and had talked the matter over with her husband, that any possible sinister significance of her master’s action occurred to her. Burt, however, had pointed out that it was not their business and that their obvious policy was silence.
Mrs. Burt did not state that she had coupled the colonel’s nocturnal excursion with the tragedy, but French could sense that this was in both her and her husband’s minds. He wondered what motive they could have suspected and further questions showed that it was connected with the colonel’s intimacy with Mrs. Berlyn. According to Mrs. Burt this had been more serious than he had imagined. Mrs. Berlyn had spent several afternoons and an occasional evening with the colonel in his study and they were known to have had many excursions together on the moor. Since the tragedy, moreover, both the Burts noticed a change in their master. He had developed fits of abstraction and brooding and acted as if he had a weight on his mind.
Believing he had got all he could from the couple, French warned them to keep
