The Professor, leaning forward on his walking-cane, and the detective, watching the woodman with a sharp side-glance, alike felt that they were on the verge of a revelation. But Blick’s brain was busy with a queer, confused doubt. Roper talked of guesswork, and it was not guess-work that Blick wanted; he was wondering what Roper meant by guess-work. And yet—for all they knew, they might at that instant be within tangible distance of the much-wanted truth. “Well?” he said. “Well? What is it?”
“Seems little enough when you come to tell of it, like—and I’m no great hand,” replied Roper. “But—this here! Last Monday night it was—night afore Guy Markenmore was found, beyond there, at Markenmore Hollow. That night, after I’d had my supper, I left my cottage to walk to Mitbourne—there was a man there as I wanted to see. I took up the hill-side, just behind Woodland Cottage, and struck into that grass-track that run a-top of the downs from thereabouts to near Mitbourne Station. And I might ha’ been about a mile or so along that when I hears men a-coming towards me——”
“What time was that, Roper?” interrupted Blick.
“It ’ud be about a quarter-past eight, and nicely dark. Now, I’d reasons o’ my own for not wanting to be seen going Mitbourne way, so when I hears they men a-coming along, I slips behind a big clump o’ gorse that was handy, and stands still. Bimeby, these two comes walking closer—I see ’em outlined against the grey o’ the sky over Selcaster way, d’ye see. One tall man—one shortish man. A few yards away, the tallish man pulls up and lights a cigar. I see his face in the light o’ the match. Then you might ha’ knocked me down with a feather, for ’twas the man I hadn’t never stopped thinking about for seven bitter years, and you may reckon who that was—Guy Markenmore! I see him so well—just for a minute—as I do see you; no mistaking of him, for there wasn’t as much alteration in his face, damn him! as what I do allow he’d ha’ seen in mine. There he was, and if it hadn’t been for t’other with him, I’d ha’ gone for him there and then. But—I didn’t! They come on, talking, they hadn’t never stopped talking since I first see ’em——”
“Hear what they said?” asked Blick.
“Not to remember—only words here and there. Until they come right opposite me—then, as they walks past, I hears something distinct enough. Guy Markenmore, he say it—‘I shall be coming along here about four o’clock in the morning to catch the four something from Mitbourne for Farsham,’ he say, and then he laughs. ‘You’ll be safe and snoring in your bed,’ he say, ‘at that time, no doubt.’ ‘Don’t you be too sure!’ say the little fellow. ‘I’m as early a bird as there is when I’m in the country!’ Then they go on, Markenmore way, and I see ’em disappears round the corner of a spinney that stands about there. And then—”
“A moment, Roper,” interrupted Blick. “The second man—the littlish chap you describe. Did he talk like a countryman? Like anybody about here, you know?”
“No!” replied Roper with emphasis. “Not he! London way o’ talking, his. Wasn’t nobody belonging to these here parts, I know. I been in London, to my sorrow! A Londoner, I set he down for.”
“You didn’t see his face?”
“I didn’t see nothing of he, ’cepting his figure, like. He stand away, as it were, out o’ the light when Guy was a-lighting of his cigar, so I didn’t catch nothing, of his looks. But he was a littlish, broadish chap. To be sure, I didn’t take no great notice of he—’cause I was wishing he wasn’t there at all!”
“Well—what then?” asked Blick.
“Then I goes on to Mitbourne and do my business with the man as I wanted to see,” said Roper, “and when that was done, I had a pint o’ ale with him at the Cock and Pie, and so come home again.”
“Aye,” remarked Blick. “Just so! And——” he paused and gave Roper a particularly knowing look. “Anything else?” he asked.
“I ain’t a-going to keep nothing back,” said Roper. “There is something else. Don’t ’ee forget as how I’d been keeping my feelings warm for Guy Markenmore for seven years! A man what’s been wronged as I had, he don’t forget easy. And when I gets to my cottage, all alone, that night, after I come in from Mitbourne, I sat a-thinking. And I did remember—’cause I hadn’t forgotten!—what Guy say to that chap he was with, about being on that footpath to Mitbourne at four o’clock next morning. So I gets up at three o’clock and sets off to meet him, intending, if I did find him up there, to have it out wi’ he—once for all!”
“Did you find him?” asked Blick quietly.
Roper glanced from the detective to the Professor.
“Aye!” he answered equally quietly. “I found him! But there’d been somebody there before me. He was warm, then—but dead enough, wi’ a bullet through the brain!”
The Professor gave a little sigh. But Blick showed no sign of surprise, and his voice, when he spoke, was more matter-of-fact than ever.
“It had happened, then, just before you got there?” he said. “See anybody about?”
Roper shook his head.
“When I found him,” he replied, “I made out as how he’d shoot his-self. But I looked close and sharp all about him, and I see there wasn’t no weapon—no pistol, revolver, nothing o’ that sort. Then I looks all round—I see nobody! It was grey morning, and you couldn’t see very far; there was mists amongst the spinneys and coppices, and curling along, the tops o’ the downs. No, I see nobody—’cepting hisself, dead.”
“Did you touch him?” enquired Blick suddenly.
A curiously dark look came over the woodman’s face, and now he looked, not at the detective, but at the Professor, as if he felt that in him he was secure of a certain sympathy and understanding.
“It’s a queer thing,” he muttered, “but a minute before I come across him, there’s nothing I could ha’ liked better than to lay hands on he! I’d ha’ had him by the throat and shook the life out of him same as that there dog ’ud shake it out of a rat! But when I see him lying there at my feet, dead and gone, I felt—I felt as if I couldn’t bide to touch a hand to his body! He was—dead! And yet I did a thing, and it was through doing that I came to know that he was still warm.”
“Yes—yes!” breathed the Professor. “What, now?”
“I see a ring on his finger,” answered Roper simply. “The sort o’ ring that they gipsy women do trade off on the lanes hereabouts: a thing o’ no vally, you understands, but one that you’d notice. And it come on me—I dunno why—that my Myra had given it to him. And I pulled it off his finger, and I went away wi’ it, leaving him there, a-staring at the sky!”
The Professor let out a long sigh. But Blick spoke.
“What have you done with that ring, Roper?” he asked.
“’Tis here!” said Roper, putting two fingers in his waistcoat pocket. “’Tis in my mind that my poor lass gave it to he! Her was fond o’ gew-gaws o’ that sort. Many’s the time her’d been took in by they gipsy-women, trading a bit o’ poor trash o’ that sort to her for good money. But it’s in me to think ’twas hers, and I wasn’t going to let he carry that to his grave!”
“Well, you were wrong,” said Blick, with remorseless candour. “Mrs. Tretheroe gave that ring to Guy Markenmore, and he gave Mrs. Tretheroe another exactly like it. They bought them in an old curiosity shop on Portsmouth Hard. It was never Myra’s.”
Roper looked fixedly at the detective. Blick nodded. And at that Roper, who had been turning the ring over in the palm of his hand, suddenly threw it on the ground before him with a gesture of dislike.
“I had thought it med be!” he muttered. “But since it isn’t——”
Blick picked up the ring and rose to his feet.
“Now, Roper,” he said, “that’s the whole truth?”
“All I know,” answered Roper. “Can’t say one word more, master.”
“You’ll stand by it?” demanded Blick.
“Stand by every word I’ve said,” affirmed Roper.
“It comes to this,” continued the detective, turning to the Professor. “We’ve heard now of a man who was in Guy Markenmore’s company the evening before the murder, and who knew that Guy would be on the downs at four o’clock next morning. Who is that man?”
“Probably the man his clerk told me about,” answered the Professor. “That’s my opinion, anyway.”
“Well, let’s be going,” said Blick. “I’ll see you again, Roper—you’ve no doubt put us on the track of something.”
But the Professor lingered.
“Look here, my man,” he said, turning to the woodman. “You know the Mitre Hotel, at Selcaster? Very good—I’m staying there. Come and see me there, tonight; there’s my card—ask for me. If you want to emigrate I’ll find you the money. Tonight, mind, any time you like after eight o’clock.”
He nudged Blick’s elbow and hurried him away out of the wood before Roper could thank him, walking at a great pace until he and his companion were once more on the hill-side.
“There’s a man into whose soul the iron has entered, my friend!” he said. “Poor fellow! poor fellow! I feel deeply and sincerely sorry for him. Seven years lonely brooding over his love affair—terrible!”
“I fear you have a very deep vein of sentiment, sir!” observed Blick. “I’m sorry for the chap, too; he evidently took Myra’s defection pretty badly to heart. But I’ll tell you what I think, Professor—I think Master Roper ought to be feeling very thankful that I didn’t request him to march down to Selcaster police-station with me! If I were not a believer in psychology as a science I should certainly have desired his presence there. But I sized him up, and watched him closely, and I think I understand his curious mental processes, and I believe he told us the truth. I only wish he’d come and confided in me a week since!”
“Do you know, I rather think that I should have done precisely what he did, had I been in his case?” remarked the Professor ingenuously. “I sympathized with the unhappy man all through. But now, my dear fellow—this mysterious person? How are you going to get on his trail?”
“The queer thing about that,” observed Blick, “is this—at least, it’s a surface difficulty. Taking Roper&rsquo............