“We shall not find it,” said the Superintendent, “till the flood subsides.”
Even yet there was one hope as they walked sadly back to The Towers: the dog Dando—where was he? It was reasonable to think that if Lady Lechester had fallen into the river, the dog would presently return to The Towers. If he did not return, there was still hope that she had wandered in some other direction, or had met with an accident—sprained her ankle, or broken her leg in the woods, perhaps. This idea had occurred to the Superintendent and to Marese long before, and the gamekeeper, with eight or ten willing assistants, had been searching the woods for hours. As they neared The Towers it was obvious from the group of people talking excitedly before the entrance that something had happened. A policeman came towards them, leading Dando in a leash.
He had but just arrived in a trap from Barnham town. Questions poured out from a hundred lips; it was difficult to get an explanation, but it was understood at last. The Superintendent on leaving Barnham had not omitted to warn the men on their heats in the town to look out for a dog—Lady Lechester’s well-known dog—merely as a forlorn hope, never dreaming that Dando would wander thither. But a little after sunrise, perhaps about six o’clock, the dog Dando walked up the high street of Barnham behind a man wearing a grey suit, who knocked at the door of Mr. Broughton’s private residence. Before the knock was answered the man in the grey suit was in custody, and the dog secured. The man in the grey suit struggled violently—fought like a wild beast, which still further prejudiced the police against him, and was with difficulty handcuffed, manacled, and conveyed to the station-house on a stretcher. No one to look at his slight figure would have thought him capable of such savage battling. He asked perpetually for Mr. Broughton, declared that he was not mad—which was strange, as no one had accused him of that failing, and refused to give his name—another trait that looked ill. When asked if he had seen Lady Lechester he denied all knowledge of such a person. The dog had followed him just as any other dog might. As to the road he had come he was obstinately silent. The police had not waited to waste further inquiries upon him, but hastened to The Towers with the news for their chief.
His face fell immediately. “I fear,” he said, “that Lady Lechester is indeed lost. The dog would never have left her unless. However, we have now got a clue.”
Marese gave up all hope; yet with his old cool self-possession before he started with the Superintendent for Barnham, he wrote out a telegram and despatched it to Theodore, briefly acquainting him with what had happened, and asking him to be especially agreeable to that person—meaning Violet, whose value as a second string to the bow had risen at once. This telegram was despatched to a dead man: Theodore had been killed the night before in the Sternhold Hall, but in the confusion and the difficulty of at once identifying bodies, no news had been sent to Marese.
With the Superintendent, Marese went into the cell at the police station, and saw Aymer Malet handcuffed and manacled. Poor Aymer, indeed! His hair was rough over his forehead, his cheeks stained with blood from a scratch received in the struggle, his whole look wild in the extreme. He saw Marese Baskette, the murderer, the man who had confined him. Is it to be wondered at that he grew excited? He said nothing, but his face worked, and his teeth ground together. Marese looked at him steadily, almost with a smile. In that moment, swift as it passed, he debated upon his best course. Truth, or what he called truth, was the safest, although it would save Aymer’s life.
“I know this man,” he said. “He is a lunatic; he has escaped from my cousin’s asylum at Stirmingham. He is very dangerous: without a doubt, this is the guilty party.”
Aymer denied it. All his efforts were to make people believe that he was not mad. As yet he had no conception of the darker shadow hanging over him: his one idea was, that he had been pursued and captured—that he should be sent back to the asylum. Therefore he had refused to give his name, or to describe the road by which he had come to Barnham. This very mistake increased the suspicion against him of a knowledge of Lady Lechester’s disappearance. It will now be understood why Fulk burnt the paper that Violet might not read it, and why The Place was dark and cheerless when they reached it. These events had happened just before they arrived.
Marese never lost his presence of mind for a moment, not even when he heard of Theodore’s awful death. Turn the mind to the present, was his maxim: do the best with it you can. His one concern was the disappearance of Violet: still he felt certain that he should be able to trace her. At present, the one thing needful was to crush Aymer Malet. He held that enemy now in the hollow of his hand: he should “taste his finger,” as the Orientals say.
The magistrates on hearing the evidence at once made out a warrant, and Aymer was remanded, while the search went on for the body, which still eluded all search. Upon the third day, however, some important evidence turned up, and
