Cecil’s expression still showed a tinge of malice.
“You’d wonder,” he said. “It’s all very well for you to sneer at these affairs; but it looks a bit different when you yourself happen to be the object of them, I guess. It’s easy to say ‘Superstition’ in a high-minded way; but if there’s one percent chance that the superstition’s going to hit you personally, then, you know, it rankles a bit. Anything to give pain is my motto where Maurice is concerned.”
Quite oblivious of Sir Clinton’s rather disgusted expression, he laughed softly to himself for a moment or two.
“And the funniest thing in the whole affair,” he went on, “is that I know all about this White Man. Can’t you guess what it was?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Why, don’t you see?” Cecil demanded, still laughing. “What old Groby came across must obviously have been Maurice himself in his white Pierrot dress, coming back from the burglar-hunt! That’s what makes it so damned funny. Fancy Maurice getting the creeps on account of himself! It’s as good a joke as I’ve heard for a while.”
He laughed harshly.
“You don’t seem to see it. Well, well. Perhaps you’re right. And now I must be getting back to the house. I’ve a lot of stuff to collect before I go off.”
He shook hands with Sir Clinton and moved off towards Ravensthorpe. The Chief Constable gazed after him for a moment or two.
“That young man’s in a most unpleasant frame of mind,” he commented to himself. “He’s obviously quite off his normal balance when he’d make a point of that kind of thing. I can’t say I take much stock in brotherly love; but this is really overdoing the business. Both of them seem to have taken leave of ordinary feelings. It’s just as well they’re parting, perhaps.”
Rather moodily he retraced his steps to where the Inspector was directing the operations by the bank of the lakelet; but by the time he reached the group his face had taken on its normal expression.
“Fishing still poor?” he demanded, as he came up.
“Nothing so far, sir,” the Inspector confessed. “These rocks are the very deuce to work amongst. I’ve been running the grapnel over the same track two or three times, just in case we miss the thing the first shot. We’ve had no luck at all—unless you count this as a valuable find: a bit of limestone or something like that.”
He kicked a shapeless mass of white stone as he spoke. Sir Clinton stooped over it: a dripping mass about the size of a man’s fist. The Inspector watched him as he examined it; but Sir Clinton’s face suggested neither interest nor satisfaction.
“Might be a bit of marble that got swept over the top when they were putting up the balustrade in the old days,” the Inspector hazarded.
Sir Clinton looked at it again and shook his head.
“I doubt it,” he said. “However, since it’s the only thing you’ve fished up, you’d better keep it, Inspector. One never knows what may be useful. I might make a paperweight out of it as a souvenir.”
The Inspector failed to see the point of the joke, but he laughed as politely as he could.
“Very well, Sir Clinton, I’ll see that it’s put aside.”
He glanced over the Chief Constable’s shoulder.
“Here’s Mr. Clifton coming, sir.”
Sir Clinton turned round to find that Michael Clifton had approached while he was engaged with the dragging operations. Leaving the group by the bank, he walked slowly to meet the advancing figure.
“Good morning, Mr. Clifton. Come up to see how we’re getting on, I suppose. There’s nothing to report, I’m afraid.”
“Drawn blank?” Michael inquired, needlessly. “There ought to be something there, all the same.”
“It may have been only a stone,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “You heard a splash; that’s all we have to go on. And a stone would make that as well as anything else.”
“That’s true,” Michael admitted. “None of us saw the thing hit the water, so we’ve no notion what it was like. It might have been a stone for all we can tell. But why should the fellow pitch a brick into the water? That’s what puzzles me.”
Before Sir Clinton could reply, a shout came from the bank, and the Inspector waved to them to come down.
“We’ve got something, sir,” he called, as they drew nearer.
Followed by Michael, Sir Clinton hurried up to the group at the water’s edge. The Inspector was kneeling down, carefully disentangling the grapnel from something white. At last he rose and held out his capture. Michael gave an exclamation.
“A white jacket!”
A little further shaking of the material showed that it was a complete white Pierrot costume, except for the cap and shoes. The Inspector spread it out on the grass to dry, after holding the jacket outspread in the air so that they could gauge its size by comparison with his own body.
“That’s what I’ve been hoping to get hold of, Inspector,” Sir Clinton said. “I doubt if you’ll find much more in the pool. But perhaps you’d better go on dragging for a while yet. Something else might turn up.”
He examined the costume carefully; but it was quite evident that there were no identifying marks on it. During the inspection, Michael showed signs of impatience; and as soon as he could he unostentatiously drew Sir Clinton away from the group.
“Come up here, Mr. Clifton,” the Chief Constable suggested, as he turned towards the hillock he had chosen earlier in the morning. “We can keep an eye on things from this place.”
He sat down and Michael, after a glance to see that they were out of earshot of the dragging party, followed his example.
“What do you make of that?” he demanded eagerly.
Sir Clinton seemed to have little desire to discuss the matter.
“Let’s be quite clear on one point before we begin,” he reminded Michael. “I’m a Chief Constable, not a broadcasting station. My business is to collect information, not to throw it
