"I glimpsed at it, there, lyin' like a snake," he began, and let fall
the stick with another sudden, sharp cry. "Ur-rh! There's blood
upon it!"
Mr. Rogers picked it up and examined it loathingly. Blood there
was--blood mixed with grey hairs upon its heavy ebony knob, and blood
again upon its wicked-looking spike.
"This settles all question of the weapon," he said. "The owner of
this--"
We cried out, speaking together, that the stick belonged to the
murdered man; and just then a voice hailed us, and Constable Hosken
came panting up, with two of Miss Belcher's woodmen at his heels.
Mr. Rogers directed them to fetch a hurdle. Then came the question
whither to carry the corpse, and after some discussion one of the
woodmen suggested that Miss Belcher's cricket pavilion lay handy, a
couple of hundred yards beyond the rise of the park, across the
stream. "At this time of year the lady wouldn't object--"
Mr. Rogers shuddered.
"And the last time I saw the inside of it 'twas at Lydia's
Cricket-Week Ball--and the place all flags and lanterns, and a good
third of the men drunk! Well, carry him there if you must, but damme
if I'll ever find stomach to dance there again!"
The men lifted their burden and carried it out into the lane, where
the rest of us pulled away the furze-bushes stopping he gate into the
park, and so followed the body up the green slope towards the rise,
over which, as we climbed, the thatched roof of the pavilion slowly
hove into sight.
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