“If I can only conceal the fact that I’ve been absent all night, it will be of such very material assistance,” she said after we had crossed the high road and gained the shelter of a long narrow spinney. “I shall never be able to sufficiently repay you for this,” she added.
“Remember the confession of my heart to you last night, Lolita,” was my answer. “We will discuss it all later on—when you are safe.” And we pushed forward, our eyes and ears on the alert as we approached the village.
At last, by good fortune, I managed to get her unobserved inside my house. Creeping noiselessly up the stairs I took her to one of my dusty, disused attics in preference to my sitting-room, and there she locked herself in. Not, however, before I had pressed her hand in silence as assurance that she might place her trust in me.
A few moments later I found my old housekeeper in the kitchen, and having given her directions to go on an errand for me to a farm about a mile and a half distant, I started off up to the Hall upon as strange an errand as man has ever gone, namely to steal a dress belonging to his love.
I had, of course, disregarded my appointment with Pink, and not wishing to meet the searchers or the doctor himself, I reached the Hall by the bypath that led from Lowick, passing along the edge of the Monk’s Wood wherein I had met Lolita.
On entering the mansion I found that the startling news of the tragedy had just reached there, for the servants were all greatly alarmed. They crowded about me to learn the latest details, but I passed quickly on to my room and for a few minutes pretended to be engrossed in correspondence, although my real reason was to await an opportunity to reach her ladyship’s room after the servants’ bell had sounded and the faithful maid Weston had gone down to breakfast.
At last the bell clanged, and I stole along the corridor in order to watch the neat maid’s disappearance with the others. She seemed longer than usual, but presently she came, and after she had passed along to the servants’ hall I quickly ascended the main staircase, and sped along the two long corridors to my love’s room—a large, well-furnished apartment with long mirrors and a dressing-table heaped with silver-mounted toilet requisites.
Without a moment’s hesitation I opened the huge wardrobe, and after a brief search discovered a dark tweed tailor-made coat and skirt which I recognised as one she often wore for walking, and these I hurriedly rolled up and together with a pair of buttoned boots carried them off. I noticed that the bed, with its pale blue silken hangings, was fortunately tumbled as though it had been slept in, therefore Weston evidently did not suspect that her young mistress had been absent all night.
Not without risk of detection, I managed to convey the dress and boots down to my own room, where I packed them in a neat parcel and carried them with all speed back to Sibberton.
Mrs. Dawson, who was a somewhat decrepit person, had not returned, therefore I carried the parcel up to the attic, and ten minutes later her ladyship came down looking as fresh and neat in her tweed gown as though she had only that moment emerged from her room.
Leaving her cloak and muddy dinner-dress in my charge, she escaped by the back and away down the garden, expressing her intention of returning to the Hall as though she had only been out an hour for a morning walk, as was so frequently her habit. She had thanked me fervently for my assistance, and in doing so uttered a sentence that struck me as remarkably strange, knowing what I did.
“You have saved me, Willoughby. You can save my life, if you will.”
“I will,” was my earnest reply. “You know my secret,” I added, raising her fingers to my hot passionate lips before we parted.
She made no mention of the tragedy, and what, indeed, could I remark?
My journey to London I was compelled to postpone in view of what had occurred. She had not referred to it, and to tell the truth I felt that my presence beside her just then was of greater need. Thus, after awaiting my housekeeper’s return in order to preserve appearances, I ate my breakfast with the air of a man entirely undisturbed.
Just before nine the doctor came in, ruddy and well-shaven, and throwing himself into an armchair exclaimed—
“You didn’t keep your promise! I called and found nobody at home. You were out.”
“I’d gone down the village,” I explained.
“Well, I’ve been up into the park with the police. They’ve sent that blundering fool Redway—worse than useless! We’ve been over the ground, but there’s so many footprints that it’s impossible to distinguish any—save one.”
“And what’s that?”
“Well, strangely enough, my dear fellow, it’s a woman’s.”
“A woman’s!” I gasped, for I saw that all my work had been in vain and in my hurry I must have unfortunately overlooked one.
“Yes, it’s the print of a woman’s slipper with a French heel—not the kind of shoe usually worn in Sibberton,” remarked the doctor. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“Very,” I agreed with a sickly feeling. “What do the police think?”
“Redway means to take a plaster cast of it—says it’s an important clue. Got a cigarette?”
I pushed the box before him, with sinking heart, and at the same time invited him to the table to have breakfast, for I had not yet finished.
“Breakfast!” he cried. “Why, I had mine at six, and am almost ready for lunch. I’m an early bird, you know.”
It was true. He had cultivated the habit of early rising by going cub-hunting with the Stanchester hounds, and it was his boast that he never breakfasted later than six either summer or winter.
“Did they find anything else?” I inquired, fearing at the same time to betray any undue curiosity.
“Found a lot of marks of men’s boots, but they might have been ours,” he answered in his bluff way as he lit his cigarette. “My theory is that the mark of the woman’s shoe is a very strong clue. Some woman knows all about it—that’s very certain, and she’s a person who wears thin French shoes, size three.”
“Does Redway say that?”
“No, I say it. Redway’s a fool, you know. Look how he blundered in that robbery in Northampton a year ago. I only wish we could get a man from Scotland Yard. He’d nab the murderer before the day is out.”
At heart I did not endorse this wish. On the contrary the discovery of this footmark that had escaped me was certainly a very serious contretemps. My endeavours must, I saw, now all be directed towards arranging matters so that, if necessary, Lolita could prove a complete alibi.
“Do you know,” went on the doctor, “there’s one feature in the affair that’s strangest of all, and that is that there seems to have been an attempt to efface certain marks, as though the assassin boldly returned to the spot after the removal of the body and scraped the ground in order to wipe out his footprints. Redway won’t admit that, but I’m certain of it—absolutely certain. I suppose the ass won’t accept the theory because it isn’t his own.”
I tried to speak, but what could I say? The words I uttered resolved themselves into a mere expression of blank surprise, and perhaps it was as well, for the man before me was as keen and shrewd as any member of the Criminal Investigation Department. He was essentially a man of action, who whether busy or idle could not remain in one place five minutes together. He rushed all over the country-side from early morning, or dashed up to London by the express, spent the afternoon in Bond Street or the Burlington, and was back at home, a hundred miles distant, in time for dinner. He was perfectly tireless, possessing a demeanour which no amount of offence could ruffle, and an even temper and chaffing good-humour that was a most remarkable characteristic. The very name of Pink in Northamptonshire was synonymous of patient surgical skill combined with a spontaneous