J. S. Fletcher

“ But now—business! I'm sure you won't mind if I ask you one or two personal questions, Mrs. Tretheroe? Well, first—I see that on the third finger of your right hand, you wear a somewhat curious ring."
"This!" answered Mrs. Tretheroe. "You may look at it." She stretched out her hand and laid it, a very slim and shapely member, in Blick's palm. "Odd, isn't it?" she added, as, after a moment, during which she turned her hand over, she withdrew it. "Unusual!"
"It's a very uncommon sort of thing, I should think," replied Blick. "Now, do you know if the late Mr. Guy Markenmore had a ring like that?" ”

“ Blick put his face near the lattice and looked through. Half a dozen labourers, mostly middle-aged or elderly men, sat near a cheery fire in the old-fashioned kitchen. Pots of ale on the tables before them, pipes of tobacco at their lips. ”

“ Blick out of sheer politeness, took a cigarette, though he hated Turkish tobacco like poison, and dropped into an easy chair.
"Depends," he answered tersely. "Sometimes you have to do an awful lot of talking over things of this sort—no end of questions, you know, before you can get at one little bit of truth. But I don't want to bore you with a lot of questions, Mrs. Tretheroe.
"Oh, that's all right!" replied Mrs. Tretheroe, complacently. "Rather interesting, after all; I suppose you do get a lot of interest in your work, don't you? ”

“ Or, he might know the man who had left the pipe, and have quietly abstracted it, in the crush and confusion, with the idea of destroying evidence against a friend. But, anyhow, there the pipe was, in von Eckhardstein's pocket, where he had slipped it on picking it up from the table—and Blick had seen and identified it.
"And if it's his," mused Blick, "then he's the man who went to the Sceptre at two o'clock last Tuesday morning, and left at three-fifteen with Guy Markenmore and the other chap! That's a dead sure thing!" ”

“ Ain't there men round about here as had sweethearts and lassies whose heads he turned with his ways? Wasn't he allus a-making love to all the good-looking young women? Doon't 'ee tell me!—there's more nor one man this side the downs as 'ud be glad o' the chance of getting his knife into Master Guy Markenmore—or a pistol-bullet, either! ”

“ Revenge be a mighty strong weapon in a man's right hand, and it do grow all the stronger wi' keeping, like good ale. Aye, sure, it med be a matter o' revenge——"
Blick presently went away, to think over this suggestion. Grimsdale came to him again, looking mysterious.
"There's a young man out there in the garden wants to see you—alone, in secret," he said.
"Who is he?" asked Blick.
Grimsdale gave him a knowing glance*.
"One of Mrs. Tretheroe's grooms," he answered. ”

“ But who he be I dunno, and I be mortal sure nobody else don't know, faith!"
"Well, 'tain't in my conscience for to say as how I b'lieve Master John Harborough, up to Greycloister, done it," said a third man. "I can't bring myself for to agree that a gentleman born 'ud be gettin' out of his bed at three o'clock of a morning for to goo shooting at another gentleman! 'Twould seem a 'nation queer sort of a Christian privilege, would so! ”