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I gazed at her open-mouthed. Did she, I wondered, know the actual truth? Was she aware that the woman who had fallen there had disappeared?
"A second person!" I echoed, as though in surprise. "Then do you believe that a double murder was committed?"
"I draw my conclusion from the fact that the young man, on being struck in the heart, could not have gone such a distance as that which separates the one mark from the other."
"But he might have been slightly wounded-on the hand, or in the face-at first, and then at the spot where he was found struck fatally," I suggested.
She shook her head dubiously, but made no reply to my argument. Her confidence in her own surmises made it quite apparent that by some unknown means she was aware of the second victim. Indeed, a few moments later she said to me:
"It is for this reason, Mr. Gregg, that I have sought you in confidence. Nobody must know that I have come here to you, or they would suspect; and if suspicion fell upon me it would bring upon me a fate worse than death. Remember, therefore, that my future is entirely in your hands."
"I don't quite understand," I said, rising and standing before her in the fading twilight, while the rain drove upon the old diamond window panes. "But I can only assure you that whatever confidence you repose in me, I shall never abuse, Miss Leithcourt."
"I know, I know!" she said quickly. "I trust you in this matter implicitly. I have come to you for many reasons, chief of them being that if a second victim has fallen beneath the hand of the assassin, it is, I know, a woman."
"A woman! Whom?"
"At present I ca
"But if we succeed in finding it, could we place our hand upon the assassin?" I asked, looking straight at her.
"If we find it, the crime would then tell its own tale-it would convict the person in whose hand I have seen that fatal weapon," was her clear, bold answer.
"Then you wish me to assist you in this search, Miss Leithcourt?" I said, wondering if her suspicions rested upon that mysterious yachtsman, Philip Hornby, the man to whom she was engaged.
"Yes, I would beg of you to do your utmost in secret to endeavor to discover the body of the second victim. It is a woman-of that I am certain. Find her, and we shall then be able to bring the crime home to the assassin."
"But my search may bring suspicion upon me," I remarked. "It will be difficult to examine the whole wood without arousing the curiosity of somebody-the keeper or the police."
"I have already thought of that," she said. "I will pretend to-morrow to lose this watch-bracelet in the wood," and she held up her slim wrist to show me the little enameled watch set in her bracelet. "Then you and I will search for it diligently, and the police will never suspect the real reason of our investigation. To-morrow I shall write to you telling you about my loss, and you will come over to Ra
I was silent for a moment.
"Is Mr. Woodroffe back at the castle? I heard he was to return to-day."
"No. I had a letter from him from Bordeaux a week ago. He is still on the Continent. I believe, indeed, he has gone to Russia, where he sometimes has business."
"I asked you the question, Miss Muriel, because I thought if Mr. Woodroffe were here, he might object to our searching in company," I explained, smiling.
Her cheeks flushed slightly, as though confused at my reference to her engagement, and she said mischievously:
"I don't see why he should object in the least. If you are good enough to assist me to search for my bracelet, he surely ought to be much obliged to you."
It was on the tip of my tongue to explain to that dark-eyed, handsome girl the circumstances in which I had met her lover on the su
What secret knowledge could be possessed by that smart, handsome girl before me? That her suspicions were in the right direction I felt confident, yet if the dead woman had been removed and hidden by the assassin it must have been after the discovery made by me. The fellow must have actually dared to return to the spot and carry off the victim. Yet if he had actually done that, why did he allow the corpse of the Italian to remain and await discovery? He might perhaps have been disturbed and compelled to make good his escape.
"If the woman was really removed the assassin must surely have had some assistance," I pointed out. "He could not have carried the body very far unaided."
She agreed with me, but expressed a belief that the double crime had been committed alone and unaided.
"Have you any idea as to the motive?" I asked her, eager to hear her reply.
"Well," she answered hesitatingly, "if the woman has fallen a victim, the motive will become plain; but if not, then the matter must remain a complete mystery."
"You tell me, Miss Muriel, that you suspect the truth, and yet you deny all knowledge of the murdered man!" I exclaimed in a tone of slight reproach.
"Until we have cleared up the mystery of the woman I can say nothing," was her answer. "I can only tell you, Mr. Gregg, that if what I suspect is true, then the affair will be found to be one of the strangest, most startling and most ingenious plots ever devised by one man against the life of another."
"Then a man is the assassin, you think?" I exclaimed quickly.
"I believe so. But even of that I am not at all sure. We must first find the woman."
She seemed so positive that a woman had also fallen beneath that deadly misericordia that I fell to wondering whether she, like myself, had discovered the body, and was therefore certain that a second crime had been committed. But I did not seek to question her further, lest her own suspicions might become aroused. My own policy was to remain silent and to wait. The woman sitting before me was herself a mystery.
Then, when the rain had abated, I told Davis to send her trap a little way up the high-road, so that my aunt and uncle should not see her departing; and after helping her on with her loose driving-coat, we left by one of the servants' entrances, and I saw her into her high dog-cart and stood bareheaded in the muddy high-road as she drove away into the gloom.
Ra
True to her promise, she had sent me a note by one of the grooms asking me to help search for her bracelet, and I had driven over at once to Ra
On arrival at the wood I asked her opinion which was the most likely corner, but she replied:
"I know so little of this place, Mr. Gregg. You have known it for years, while this is only my first season here."
"Very well," I answered. "Let us place ourselves in the position of the murderer, who probably knew the wood and wished to conceal a body in the vicinity without risk of conveying it far. On this, the left side, the wood has been thi