第52章 CHAPTER XXIII(2)

"Can you send the soldiers away for a moment?" she begged. "I don't think that they will be needed."Major Thomson gave a brief order and the men left the room. Isabel came a little nearer to the table. She avoided looking at Granet.

"I am very sorry indeed," she went on, "if anything I have done has caused all this trouble. Captain Granet came down here partly to play golf, partly at my invitation. He was here yesterday afternoon, as my father knows. Before he left--I asked him to come over last night."There was a breathless silence. Isabel was standing at the end of the table, her fingers still clasped nervously together, a spot of intense colour in her cheeks. She kept her eyes turned sedulously away from Granet. Sir Meyville gripped her by the shoulder.

"What do you mean, girl?" he demanded harshly. "What do you mean by all this rubbish? Speak out."Granet looked up for a moment.

"Don't," he begged. "I can clear myself, Miss Worth, if any one is mad enough to have suspicions about me. I should never--""The truth may just as well be told," she interrupted. "There is nothing to be ashamed of. It is hideously dull down here, and the life my father has asked me to lead for the last few months has been intolerable. I never sleep, and I invited Captain Granet to come over here at twelve o'clock last night and take me for a motor ride. I was dressed, meaning to go, and Captain Granet came to fetch me. It turned out to be impossible because of all the new sentries about the place, but that is why Captain Granet was here, and that," she concluded, turning to Major Thomson, "is why, I suppose, he felt obliged to tell you what was not the truth. It has been done before."There was a silence which seemed composed of many elements. Sir Meyville Worth stood with his eyes fixed upon his daughter and an expression of blank, uncomprehending dismay in his features. Granet, a frown upon his forehead, was looking towards the floor. Thomson, with the air of seeing nobody, was studying them all in turn. It was he who spoke first.

"As you justly remark, Miss Worth," he observed, "this sort of thing has been done before. We will leave it there for the present. Will you come this way with me, if you please, Captain Granet? I won't trouble you, Miss Worth, or you, Sir Meyville. You might not like what we are going to see."Granet rose at once to his feet.

"Of course, I will come wherever you like," he assented.

The two men passed together side by side, in momentous silence, across the stone hall, out of the house, and round the back of the garden to a wooden shed, before which was posted a sentry. The man stood on one side to let them pass. On the bare stone floor inside was stretched the dead body of Collins.

The salt water was still oozing from his clothes and limbs, running away in little streams. There was a small blue hole in the middle of his forehead.

"This, apparently," Thomson said, "is the man who lit the magnesium light which showed the Zeppelin where to throw her bombs. The thing was obviously prearranged. Can you identify him?""Identify him?" Granet exclaimed. "Why, I was playing bowls with him yesterday afternoon. He is a Glasgow merchant named Collins, and a very fine golf player. He is staying at the Dormy House Club.""He has also another claim to distinction," Major Thomson remarked drily, "for he is the man who fired those lights. The sergeant who shot him fancied that he heard voices on the creek, and crept up to the wall just before the flare came. The sergeant, I may add, is under the impression that there were two men in the boat."Granet shook his head dubiously.

"I know nothing whatever of the man or his movements," he declared, "beyond what I have told you. I have scarcely spoken a dozen words to him in my life, and never before our chance meeting at the Dormy House.""You do not, for instance, happen to know how he came here from the Dormy House?""If you mean did he come in my car," Granet answered easily, "please let me assure you that he did not. My errand here last night was indiscreet enough, but I certainly shouldn't have brought another man, especially a stranger, with me.""Thank you," Major Thomson concluded, "that is all I have to say to you for the present.""Has there been much damage done?" Granet inquired.

"Very little."

They had reached the corner of the avenue. Granet glanced down towards the road.

"I presume," he remarked, "that I am at liberty to depart?"Thomson gave a brief order to the soldier who had been attending them.

"You will find the car in which you came waiting to take you back, Captain Granet, he announced.

The two men had paused. Granet was on the point of departure. With the passing of his sudden apprehension of danger, his curiosity was awakened.

"Do you mind telling me, Major Thomson," he asked, "how it is that you, holding, I presume, a medical appointment, were selected to conduct an inquiry like this? I have voluntarily submitted myself to your questioning, but if Ihad had anything to conceal I might have been inclined to dispute your authority."Thomson's face was immovable. He simply pointed to the gate at the end of the avenue.

"If it had been necessary, Captain Granet," he said coldly, "I should have been able to convince you that I was acting under authority. As it is, I wish you good-morning."Granet hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

"Good-morning, Major!"

He made his way down to the lane, which was still crowded with villagers and loungers. He was received with a shower of questions as he climbed into the car.

"Not much damage done that I can hear," he told them all. "The corner of the house caught fire and the lawn looks like a sand-pit."He was driven in silence back to the Dormy House. When he arrived there the place was deserted. The other men were lunching at the golf club. He made his way slowly to the impromptu shed which served for a garage. His own car was standing there. He looked all around to make sure that he was absolutely alone. Then he lifted up the cushion by the driving-seat. Carefully folded and arranged in the corner were the horn-rimmed spectacles and the silk handkerchief of the man who was lying at Market Burnham with a bullet through his forehead.