Part 10 (2/2)
”Gad!... Where did you find it?”
”Here, sir; half buried, but with the 'ead a-stickin' out!” returned Petrie. ”Dollops and I pulled it out and-and 'ere it is.”
Cleek glanced down at the body of a heavily built man, clad in evening clothes, and already in an advanced state of decomposition. ”Looks like it was that chap Wynne,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. ”Answers the description all right. The other man was short and red-headed. And the evening clothes are well cut from what I can see. Must have been a handsome chap-once.... Well, we'll have to get this very gruesome find back to the Towers as quickly as possible. Got your oilskin with you, Petrie?”
”Yessir!” Petrie miraculously produced the roll from under his tunic and spread the sheet out. Then they lifted up the body and wrapped it about so that the covering hid the awfulness of it from view. Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
”Cinnamon, Cleek!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, breathlessly. ”Pretty awful, isn't it? Was it much hidden, Petrie? Funny the other people didn't find it when they searched!”
”No, sir-plain as a pikestaff!” returned Petrie importantly, for he felt the burden of responsibility and hoped that this would mean promotion. Dollops, who was by no means a regular member of the force, simply looked at Cleek with considerable pride fighting through the natural horror that the find had given birth to.
”Funny thing!” broke in Cleek at this juncture. ”The only solution must be that the body was placed there some time after death.... Leave it a little longer, boys, and we'll have a further search in this direction. We may come upon poor Collins in a similar fas.h.i.+on-though thank Heaven his disappearance didn't happen quite so long ago.”
They took a few steps farther in the same direction and-stopped simultaneously. Before their eyes lay the figure of Collins, in his discreet black clothes, his red head against a tuffet of moss, and a bullet wound in his temple.
”G.o.d!” said Cleek, softly, and sucked in his breath. ”Two of 'em. And like this!... Looks like a plant, doesn't it? Poor chap!... And yet Merriton declared that he, as well as others, had searched every inch of this ground over and over again. Seems fishy. To find 'em both here-so close together.... Let's have a look at the other poor chap.... Hmm. Bullet wound through the right temple, too. Small-calibre revolver.”
He bent down and examined the head carefully through his magnifying gla.s.s, then got slowly to his feet.
”Well, Mr. Narkom,” said he, steadily, ”nothing to be done at present, but to get these bodies back to the Towers. After that they can take 'em to the village mortuary if they like. But I've one or two things I'd like to ask you Merriton, and one or two things I want to examine. Gad! it's a beastly task, boys. That sheet's big enough, thank fortune! Cross the pitchforks, Petrie, and make a sort of stretcher out of them, that way. That's right. Now then, forward.... Gad! what a morning!”
But if he had known just exactly what the rest of that morning was to bring forth, indeed before lunch was served at one-fifteen, he might have hesitated to pa.s.s judgment upon it so soon.
Slowly the cavalcade wended its way across the rank gra.s.s....
CHAPTER XIV
THE SPIN OF THE WHEEL
Merriton stood at the study window, looking out, and pulling at his cigar with an air of profound meditation. Upon the hearth-rug Doctor Bartholomew, clad in baggy tweeds, stood tugging at his beard and watched the man's back with kindly, troubled eyes.
”Don't like it, Nigel, my boy; don't like it at all!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, suddenly, in his close-clipped fas.h.i.+on. ”These detectives are the very devil to pay. Get 'em in one's house and they're like doctors-including, of course, my humble self-difficult to get out. Part of the profession, my boy. But a beastly nuisance. Seems to me I'd rather have the mystery than the men. Simpler, anyway. And fees, you know, are heavy.”
Merriton swung round upon his heel suddenly, his brows like a thunder cloud.
”I don't care a d.a.m.n about that,” he broke out angrily. ”Let 'em take every penny I've got, so long as they solve the thing! But I can't get away from it-I just can't. Hangs over me night and day like the sword of Damocles! Until the mystery of Wynne's disappearance is cleared up, I tell you 'Toinette and I can't marry. She feels the same. And-and-we've the house all ready, you know, everything fixed and in order, except this. When poor old Collins disappeared, too, I found I'd reached my limit. So here these detectives are, and, on the whole, jolly decent chaps I find 'em.”
Doctor Bartholomew shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ”Have it your own way, my boy.” But what he really did say was:
”What are their names?”
”Young chap's Headland-George or John Headland, I don't remember quite which. Other one's Lake-Gregory Lake.”
”H'm. Good name that, Nigel. Ought to be some brains behind it. But I never did pin my faith on policemen, you know, boy. Scotland Yard's made so many mistakes that if it hadn't been for that chap Cleek, they'd have ruined themselves altogether. Now, he's a man, if you like! Pity you couldn't get him while you're about it.”
The impulse to tell who ”George Headland” really was to this firm friend who had been more than a father to him, even in the old days, and who had made a point of dropping down upon him, informally, ever since the trouble over Dacre Wynne's disappearance, took hold of Nigel. But he shook it off. He had given his word. And if he could not tell 'Toinette, then no other soul in the universe should know. So he simply tossed his shoulders, and, going back to the window, looked out of it, to hide the something of triumph which had stolen into his face.
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