he saw beneath him the red square of
the Quarry House and the smoke from its chimneys. He was on that very
road up which he and Gibson Jerkley had looked that morning. Down that
road, he had said, would come the man who knew how Major Lashley
had disappeared, and within twelve hours down that road the man was
coming. "But it must be Mr. Ripley," he said to himself.

None the less he took occasion at supper to speak of his ride.

"I rode by Leamington to Burley Wood. I went into the churchyard."
Then he stopped, but as though the truth was meant to come to light,
Resilda helped him out.

"I had a dear friend buried there not so long ago," she said. "Father,
you remember Mrs. Ripley."

"I saw her grave this afternoon," said Fosbrook, with his eyes upon
Mr. Mardale. It might have been a mere accident, it was in any case a
trifling thing, the mere shaking of a hand, the spilling of a spoonful
of salt upon the table, but trifling things have their suggestions.
He remembered that Resilda, when she had waked up on the night of
December the 11th to find herself alone, had sought out her father,
who was still up, and at work in the big drawing-room. He remembered
too that the window of that room gave on to a terrace of grass. A man
might go out by that window--aye and return without a soul but himself
being the wiser.

Of course it was all guess work and inference, and besides, it must be
Mr. Ripley. Mr. Ripley might as easily have discovered the secret
of the Memoirs as himself--or anyone else. Mr. Ripley would have
justification for anger and indeed for more--yes for what men who are
not affected are used to call a crime ... Sir Charles abruptly stopped
his reasoning, seeing that it was prompted by a defence of Mr.
Mardale. He made his escape from his hosts as soon as he decently
could and retired to his room. He sat down in his room and thought,
and he thought to some purpose. He blew out his candle, and stole down
the stairs into the hall. He had met no one. From the hall he went to
the library-door and opened it--ever so gently. The room was quite
dark. Sir Charles felt his way across it to his chair in the corner.
He sat down in the darkness and waited. After a time inconceivably
long, after every board in the house had cracked a million times, he
heard distinctly a light shuffling step in the passage, and after that
the latch of the door release itself from the socket. He heard nothing
more, for a little, he could o