"Her father's against the marriage with the count. Quite right, too," the doctor went on. "Very clever man, Professor Charteris. He was talking to me about a synthetic-emerald company which he's going to start, on the links the other day. I mean, he was talking on the links, not going to start making 'em there." The doctor checked his laugh. "This will be a terrible blow to him. And to the ladies up at Stillwater. At least—I dunno. She and Miss Sibella weren't supposed to get on over well together lately. But you know how wide of the mark idle chatter of that kind often is. I really hope for once, though, that there may be something in it. It'll break this blow, a bit."
"I had no idea there had been any ill-feeling between the two girls," Thornton murmured truthfully. He felt like a man, rather proud of his sight, who tries on a stranger's eyeglasses, and finds his field of vision trebled.
"Of course, I don't know anything about it—I never pay attention to gossip, but they're said to've been at daggers drawn for some time past. Some say over the legacy, and some over the way Miss Charteris turned down young Bellairs before it was known how his mother was going to leave her money—after she married again, you know. I think it was over the legacy myself. Well, Miss Scarlett'll have it all now. She little thought it would come to her so quickly. But of course, if what people hint is true, and it's to do with the count! Both the girls had that hot Italian blood in them, you know. Old blood. Too old. Give me a nice English girl or woman—like Mrs. Lane, now. There's a woman for you! Nerves of steel."
"Indeed!" Thornton said politely, looking bored.
"Lots more in her than you'd think. Wonderfully taking young woman, too. I had to set a sprained wrist for her once. The rumour runs that she only has to lift her little finger to be Mrs. Scarlett the second, for all she's young enough to be the colonel's daughter. But I make a point of never listening to tittle-tattle."
"Oh?"
"Can't as a medical man, you know. Quite impossible."
There followed a little break in the impossible.
"Do you know when the professor's coming back?" Thornton thought that amid such a flood of information that item might well be washed up.
"I? Not the faintest notion! How should I have? But there's an idea about that he's off for Verona to see if a law-suit can't be avoided by a friendly settlement out of court. If you ask me, I should say that he's much more likely to see if the engagement, or whatever it is, can't be stopped. As for expecting any family, however rich, to hand over land, that's always rather a pill, isn't it? And so's my breaking the news here."
The doctor's car clanked noisily up the drive. Thornton saw one of the curtains on an upper floor twitched a little to one side. Nothing was visible of the face looking out except a pair of eyes. They were so nearly level with the window ledge that their owner must be stooping or kneeling. The strange thing was the expression in them.
Thornton called his companion's attention to something on the other side of the gardens, as they stopped with a grinding clash that would have disturbed the driver of a donkey-engine, but which left the doctor unruffled.
He himself walked on past the house. He took quite a turn in the grounds, before returning to his cottage. Mrs. Bennet, she of last night's narrow escape, was setting the breakfast table. One glance at her and he saw that she knew of the accident.
"Oh, sir, the poor young lady's just arrived! The poor young thing! To think that I warned her only last week about that path. 'Miss Rose,' I said, 'don't you believe Miss Sibella that it's so much shorter, or, if it is, it's dangerouser.' But there!"
A light knock interrupted her. It was "Bond and Co.," and a very quiet breakfast followed. Mrs. Bennet's cooking conduced to silent meals, but it was not the reason this time. When the three men had lit their pipes, they strolled out into the garden. Another silence fell. Each seemed deep in thoughts that he was in no hurry to share. As usual, it was Bond who took the lead.
"You know, I'm not quite easy in my mind," he said at last in a low tone, "not at all easy! No, I'm dashed if I am!"
"Easy about what?" Thornton asked after a pause
Bond jerked his head towards the house. "Frightful end to come to a lovely girl like that, and Heaven knows I don't want to make bad worse. Yet—well, I'm not easy in my mind. There was something about the way she lay in that sand-pit. I can't put a name to it, but there was. Look here, I'm going to have another inspection of that place, and round about. Care to come, either of you?"
Thornton nodded. It was a favourite way with him of carrying on a conversation. Cockburn had already turned.
They started to walk back by the footpath. Suddenly Cockburn stopped.
"By Jove! I believe those are her very footprints before us!"
All three saw the marks of a small shoe with a low heel, just such a shoe as Rose wore, in fact, clearly marked in the damp earth. Walking carefully on the grass, they traced them until they stopped at the spot where the sand-pit ran in close to the path.
"Then here's where we ought to examine a bit more closely." Bond's voice was very low.
All around them the common stretched. Close beside them on the right lay the sand-pit. Some distance to the left a copse straggled untidily. Just the usual brambles, spindly aspens, and twisted nondescripts On one of the branches a willow warbler was pouring out a little song, as perfect and as finished as his own green-and-white feathered coat. A cuckoo called from far away—melancholy, mysterious. Such sounds might have been the last that Rose Charteris's ears had ever heard.
Suddenly Bond pounced on something lying just beneath the singer. Something that glittered like a drop of belated dew. It was an amethyst bead of a beautiful full purple. Cockburn picked up a second. As he turned his find over on his palm it left a red stain.
A little thing, this bead, he thought, to possibly hang a man.
"Blood," Bond nodded to himself. "Yes—well, I felt sure that something was wrong. And here again on this little clover patch, here's blood again."
No one spoke for a tense second, then he went on.
"I don't think we ought to track up the place any more, or paw things over. I think we ought to go at once to the police."
"Surely to Colonel Scarlett first, and let him call in the police," Thornton objected.
"Every moment's of value," Bond pointed out briefly. "I don't think this is a time to stay for mere politeness."
"It's a question of common decency," Thornton spoke with warmth. "We ought to go to him first, and tell him about the beads. Not spring the police on him before the stretcher carrying his niece has more than reached the house."
Cockburn looked as though there were something to be said for this point of view. But Bond thrust out that slight, rather retreating jaw of his.
"Sorry, I don't see it that way. We might waste half the morning in talk. Look here, the superintendent seems a decent chap; let's lay the affair before him, and he can see to it that no one's feelings are unnecessarily shocked. Or why not you go back to Stillwater, and let the colonel know, while Co. and I go on to the police station?"
Thornton did not seem to care for this suggestion.
"No. I'll go on with you, since you insist on doing it this way."
The three walked to the nearby police station. And, a moment later, to the accompaniment of whiffs of kippers, the police officer they had met at the sand pit hurried into the room. He was a stout, florid man, who owed his position to the pluck with which he had stopped three bank robbers after they had killed the manager.
Now he himself was due to retire very shortly. He had done very well. He was an honest, fair-minded, kindly man. Popular, in spite of his strictness, even with the tramps that passed that way.
He listened attentively to what his three visitors had to say, looking, thoughtfully at the two beads and the tuft of clover laid in front of him.