later. Not one of all the
many servants, men or women, could tell anything of their master or
mistress, nor of any suspicious doings on the part of Hollins during the
past two days, except that he had been away from the house a good deal.
Whatever share the butler had taken in these recent events, he had played
his part skilfully.

So--as it seemed--there was nothing for it but to look further away, the
impression of the police being that Meekin had escaped in one direction
and his wife in another, and that it had been their plan that Hollins
should foregather with them somewhere on the Continent; and presently we
all left Hathercleugh House to go back to Berwick. As we crossed the
threshold, Mr. Lindsey turned to Mr. Gavin Smeaton with a shrewd smile.

"The next time you step across here, sir, it'll be as Sir Gavin
Carstairs!" he said. "And we'll hope that'll not long be delayed!"

"I'm afraid there's a good deal to do before you'll be seeing that, Mr.
Lindsey," answered the prospective owner. "We're not out of the wood yet,
you know."

We certainly were not out of the wood--so far as I was concerned, those
last words might have been prophetic, as, a little later, I was inclined
to think Maisie's had been before she went off in the car. The rest of
them, Mr. Lindsey and his group, Murray and his, had driven up from
Berwick in the first conveyances they could get at that time of night,
and they now went off to where they had been waiting in a neighbouring
shed. They wanted me to go with them--but I was anxious about my bicycle,
a nearly new machine. I had stowed it away as securely as I could under
some thick undergrowth on the edge of the woods, but the downpour of rain
had been so heavy that I knew it must have soaked through the foliage,
and that I should have a nice lot of rust to face, let alone a saturated
saddle. So I went away across the park to where I had left it, and the
others drove off to Berwick--and so both Mr. Lindsey and myself broke our
solemn words to Maisie. For now I was alone--and I certainly did not
anticipate more danger.

But not only danger, but the very threatening of death was on me as I
went my way. We had stayed some time in Hathercleugh House, and the dawn
had broken before we left. The morning came clear and bright after the
storm, and the newly-risen sun--it was just four o'clock, and he was
nicely above the horizon--was transforming the clustering raindrops on
the firs and pines in