One question alone occupied me as I walked back: What was the exact significance of the almost certain fact that the situation which the Trethewys had obtained was really in Vane-Cartwright’s service? Had I learnt that fact a day sooner, I might have thought that, murderer or not, he had done a true and unobtrusive kindness in secretly engaging them, but the little scene in the Pitti, and the trivial story of the best bedroom at Crema, shut that explanation out of my mind. I had not resolved this question when I got to the hotel and to my wife, who was now anxiously expecting me. I had not even thought of the other questions, to which it led, but I had at least returned in far too sensible a mood to think any further of disguising anything from her. Our talk lasted well into the night. I record so much of the substance of its close as really concerns my story. “But still I do not see,” I said, “why you should say I have spoilt our holiday.” “Because you must go by the first train tomorrow. Not a moment later. Oh, Robert, cannot you see why I have been so angry? I have looked forward so to our stay alone together at Rome, and at another time I should be very angry to lose it; but it is not that. Oh, Robert, I could find it in my heart to beg you not to do your duty. It is your duty; you would not be so full of passion against the man if it was not that you knew it was your duty; and I know it too, and you must follow up that clue at once before he makes it too late. But, oh, what am I saying, it is not your duty I am thinking of. I would beg you to let the duty be if that would save you. But it is too late now; it’s a race for life between you and him. Peters has been killed, and Verschoyle has been killed, and oh!”
The thought was not in the least new to me except so far as it concerned Verschoyle. I had foreseen a time when my life would be in danger from Vane-Cartwright. Stupid as it may seem, I had not realised yet that that time was now, and anyway I had resolved to treat it lightly myself, and hoped that it might not occur to her. We spent a while without words. Then I said, in the foolish persuasion that it was a manly utterance: “I do not think that I am brave, but somehow the idea of being murdered, even if I put the likelihood of it far higher than I do, is not one which, apart from the thought of you, would weigh much with me.” Whatever I may have been going to add, I was allowed to go no further. I was made to see in a minute that the risk to my life was a real consideration which it was selfish and, in a man of normal courage, very cheap to overlook; but anyway, the need for haste was real, and, after a very short rest, I was to start. To get ahead of Vane-Cartwright, who would probably look out for my departure, I had resolved to take horses and carriage in the early morning, post to Prato, and take the railway there. My wife was to go with our daughter to our friend’s villa. So the next morning found me on my way to England, sad to go, and yet, I must confess, not a little exhilarated, against all reason, by the sense that perhaps it really was a race for life on which I had started, and a race with a formidable competitor.
XVII
Crondall is a small market town on a chalk stream in a Southern county, and about two miles from it down the valley lies the shooting- and fishing-box which Vane-Cartwright, as I found, had lately taken, with a very considerable shooting in the well-wooded hills, which lay behind it reaching up to the chalk downs, and with a mile or so of fishing in the trout-stream which passed through the garden. People shoot because it is the thing to do, but as a rule they do not hunt or fish unless they like it. So it was for the shooting that Vane-Cartwright had taken this place, a very charming place for a bachelor, and within easy reach of town. Trethewy, however, had been engaged as a sort of water-bailiff and to look after the fishing, which he was more or less competent to do. I found him installed in a queer old thatched cottage which stood on an island, formed by two branches of the stream, at the lower end of the garden. The cottage could be approached by a narrow footbridge from a private footpath which led from Crondall. On the other side of the stream a public footpath led towards the small village and the once famous fishing inn, at which I took up my quarters for a few nights. The bridge just mentioned was formed by two narrow brick arches, and above them were hatches which were now raised; and just below the bridge the stream was spanned by one of the old-fashioned fish-houses which are occasionally found on South-country streams,
