ssed
with difficulty. Realizing, however, the absolute folly of expressing any
resentment, Grant turned, and, without meaning it, looked again in the
direction of the cottage on the crest of the opposite bank. This time a
girl was leaning out of the dormer window. She had shaded her eyes with a
hand, because the sun was streaming into her face, but when she saw that
Grant was looking her way she waved a handkerchief.

He fluttered his own blood-stained handkerchief in brief acknowledgment,
and wheeled about, only to find P. C. Robinson watching him furtively,
having suspended his note-taking for the purpose.

CHAPTER II

P.C. ROBINSON "TAKES A LINE"

"It will help me a lot, sir," he said, "if you tell me now what you know
about this matter. If, as seems more than likely, murder has been done, I
don't want to lose a minute in starting my inquiries. In a case of this
sort I find it best to take a line, and stick to it."

His tone was respectful but firm. Evidently, P.C. Robinson was not one to
be trifled with. Moreover, for a sleuth whose maximum achievement
hitherto had been the successful prosecution of a poultry thief, it was
significant that the unconscious irony of "a case of this sort" should
have been lost on him.

"Do you really insist on conducting your investigation while the body is
lying here?" demanded Grant, deliberately turning his back on the girl in
the distant cottage.

"Not that, sir--not altogether--but I must really ask you to clear up one
or two points now."

"For goodness' sake, what are they?"

"Well, sir, in the first place, how did you come to find the body?"

"I walked out into the garden after finishing breakfast a few
minutes ago, and noticed the rope attached to the staple, just as
you see it now."

"Did you walk straight here?"

"No. Not exactly. I was--er--curious about the face I saw, or thought I
saw, last night, and looked into the room through the same window. By
doing so I scared Mrs. Bates, who was clearing the table, and she
screamed--"

"Her would, too," put in Bates. "Her'd take 'ee for Owd Ben's ghost."

"You shut up, Bates," said the policeman. "Don't interrupt Mr. Grant."

Grant was conscious of an undercurrent of suspicion in the
constable's manner. He was wroth with the man, but recognized that he
had to deal with narrow-minded self-importance, so contrived again to
curb his temper.

"I am not acquainted with old Ben or his ghost," he said quietly.