His face cleared completely as he considered the fresh situation which had presented itself.
“This is worth a dozen of the other notion. All I have to do now is to sit tight and keep a straight face.”
The secretary soon reached the outskirts of the Maze. Then, taking up a position which commanded the road to the East Gate, he sat down on the grass and waited the arrival of the police.
Before long, a motor-horn sounded, and he rose to his feet as a big car came tearing up the narrow private road. In the front seats were two civilians, whilst the back held three uniformed policemen. Long before the motor reached him, Stenness had recognised the man at the wheel as the owner of a neighbouring estate.
“That’s Wendover of Talgarth Grange. I wonder what he’s doing here.”
Going out into the roadway, the secretary signalled them to stop and the long car drew up as it came level with him. Wendover jumped down from the driving seat and came forward while the others were getting out of the motor.
“Sad business, this, Stenness! Terrible affair! Is poor Shandon really dead? Why, I saw him yesterday, poor chap.”
Stenness was watching the remainder of the party, and he noticed that there had been a dog in the car. It was now fawning on the second civilian, evidently delighted to get out of its cramped quarters in the motor. Stenness turned back to his interlocutor.
“It’s worse than we supposed when I telephoned. Two of the Shandons have been murdered in the Maze, here.”
He nodded in the direction of the high green hedges.
Wendover was completely taken aback.
“Two of them! My godfathers! Here, Clinton!” he called to the second civilian. “Terrible business, this. There’s been a second murder.”
Then, as the man with the dog came up to them, Wendover turned back to the secretary.
“This is the Chief Constable, Sir Clinton Driffield. Clinton, this is Mr. Stenness; secretary to Roger Shandon.”
Stenness examined the Chief Constable with what seemed more than common interest. Sir Clinton was a slight man who looked about thirty-five. His suntanned face, the firm mouth under the close-clipped moustache, the beautifully-kept teeth and hands, might have attracted a second glance in a crowd; but to counter this there was deliberate ordinariness about his appearance. Had a stranger, meeting him casually, been asked later on to describe him, it would have been difficult; for Sir Clinton designedly refrained from anything characteristic in his dress. Only his eyes failed to fit in with the rest of his conventional appearance; and even them he had disciplined as far as possible. Normally, they had a bored expression; but at times the mask slipped aside and betrayed the activity of the brain behind them. When fixed on a man they gave a curious impression as though they saw, not the physical exterior of the subject, but instead the real personality concealed below the facial lineaments.
“A second case? H’m! You seem to be starting a wholesale trade at Whistlefield, Mr. Stenness.”
Stenness was not impressed by the cheerfulness of the tone. He had felt those keen eyes sweep over him; and though it had been anything but a stare, he had the sensation of being appraised and catalogued for future reference. He disliked the turn of the Chief Constable’s phrase, too. Whether intentionally or not, it seemed to verge on the macabre.
“What about starting, eh?” Wendover demanded. “Get on the track while the scent’s hot, Clinton? Every minute may count, you know.”
Sir Clinton assented with a nod and snapped his fingers to call his dog to heel.
“Suppose you show us the bodies, Mr. Stenness.”
Without replying, Stenness led the way into the Maze, followed closely by the whole party. The Chief Constable scanned the corridors as he passed along, but made no comment. Wendover evidently felt that some explanation of his presence was due, for as they traversed the alleys he overtook the secretary.
“Curious coincidence, this, Stenness. Sir Clinton’s a friend of mine, and he happened to be staying with me just now for a few days. Most fortunate affair! When you phoned down to the police station, they rang him up at once at the Grange. I got out the car, of course; and we picked up the constables at the station as we passed. Couldn’t have been better planned, could it?”
Then, passing to a new line of thought, he added:
“Terrible affair for the family! Dreadful business! It’ll be a frightful shock for Miss Hawkhurst, won’t it?”
Before Stenness could reply, they came to the entrance of one of the centres of the Maze. The secretary turned to the Chief Constable.
“This is what they call the Pool of Narcissus, Sir Clinton. We found Neville Shandon’s body here. Roger Shandon’s body is lying in the other centre of the Maze.”
Sir Clinton nodded without replying, took off his hat, and entered the enclosure. The body lay just as Stenness had seen it last; and the Chief Constable made no attempt to touch it, though he subjected it to a most minute inspection.
“I forgot to tell you,” whispered Wendover. “We phoned for a doctor to come and examine the body. He’ll be here very soon.”
The Chief Constable rose lightly to his feet.
“Two or three small wounds, apparently; but not much bleeding. Once the doctor’s overhauled him, we can make a fuller examination. In the meantime things had better be left as they are. Will you take us to the other body now, Mr. Stenness?”
Leaving one of the constables on guard over the corpse, the party made its way, under Stenness’s guidance, to the second centre of the Maze. On the road, Wendover gave Stenness some further information.
“Most fortunate that Driffield was on the spot, wasn’t it? He’ll get to the bottom of things quick enough; trust him for that. He used to be out in South Africa; a big post in the police there. Then he came home for family reasons and dropped into the Chief Constableship here. Much too good a man for the place,