the meal was a success.
An under gardener lent Furneaux a bicycle. After a chat with Farrow, to whom he conveyed some sandwiches and a bottle of beer, the detective rode to Easton. He sent a rather long telegram to his own quarters, called at a chemist's, and reached the White Horse at Roxton about two o'clock.
Now the imp of mischance had contrived that John Trenholme should hear no word of the murder until he came downstairs for luncheon after a morning's steady work.
The stout Eliza, fearful lest Mary should forestall her with the news, bounced out from the kitchen when his step sounded on the stairs.
"There was fine goin's on in the park this morning, Mr. Trenholme," she began breathlessly.
He reddened at once, and avoided her fiery eye. Of course, it had been discovered that he had watched that girl bathing. Dash it all, his action was unintentional! What a bore!
"Mr. Fenley was shot dead on his own doorstep," continued Eliza. She gave proper emphasis to the concluding words. That a man should be murdered "on his own doorstep" was a feature of the crime that enhanced the tragedy in the public mind. The shooting was bad enough in itself, for rural England is happily free from such horrors; but swift and brutal death dealt out on one's own doorstep was a thing at once monstrous and awe-compelling. Eliza, perhaps, wondered why Mr. Trenholme flushed, but she fully understood the sudden blanching of his face at her tidings, for all Roxton was shaken to its foundations when the facts slowly percolated in that direction.
"Good Lord!" cried he. "Could that be the shot I heard?"
"He was killed at half past nine, sir."
"Then it was! A keeper heard it, too—and a policeman—our Roxton policeman."
"That would be Farrow," said Eliza. "What was he doin', the lazy-bones, that he couldn't catch the villain?"
"What villain?"
"The man who killed poor Mr. Fenley."
"They know who did it, then?"
"Well, no. There's all sorts o' tales flyin' about, but you can't believe any of 'em."
"But why are you blaming Farrow? He's a good fellow. He sings. No real scoundrel can sing. Read any novel, any newspaper report. 'The prisoner's voice was harsh and unmusical.' You've seen those words scores of times."
In his relief at learning that his own escapade was not published broadcast, Trenholme had momentarily forgotten the dreadful nature of Eliza's statement. She followed him into the dining-room.
"You'll be a witness, I suppose," she said, anxious to secure details of the shot-firing.
"A witness!" he repeated blankly.
"Yes, sir. There can't be a deal o' folk who heard the gun go off."
"By Jove, Eliza, I believe you're right," he said, gazing at her in dismay. "Now that I come to think of it, I am probably the only person in existence who can say where that shot came from. It was a rifle, too. I spoke of it to the keeper and Farrow."
"I was sure something would happen when I dreamed of suffrigettes this mornin'. An' that comes of playin' pranks, Mr. Trenholme. If it wasn't for that alarm clock——"
"Oh, come, Eliza," he broke in. "An alarm clock isn't a Gatling gun. Your association of ideas is faulty. There is much in common between the clatter of an alarm clock and the suffragist cause, but all the ladies promised not to endanger life, you know."
"Anyhow, Mr. Fenley is dead as a doornail," said Eliza firmly.
"Too bad. I take back all the hard things I said about him, and I'm sure you do the same."
"Me!"
"Yes. Didn't you say all the Fenleys were rubbish? One of them, at any rate, was wrongly classified."
"Which one?"
Trenholme bethought himself in time.
"This unfortunate banker, of course," he said.
"I'd a notion you meant Miss Sylvia. She's pretty as a picter—prettier than some picters I've seen—and folk speak well of her. But she's not a Fenley."
At any other time the artist would have received that thrust en tierce with a riposte; at present, Eliza's facts were more interesting than her wit.
"Who is the lady you are speaking of?" he asked guardedly.
"Mr. Fenley's ward, Miss Sylvia Manning. They say she's rich. Pore young thing! Some schemin' man will turn her head, I'll go bail, an' all for the sake of her brass."
"Most likely a one-legged gunner, name of Jim."
"Well, it won't be a two-legged painter, name of Jack!" And Eliza bounced out.
Now, Mary of the curl papers, having occasion to go upstairs while Trenholme was eating, peeped through the open door of the room which he had converted into a studio. She saw a picture on the easel, and the insatiable curiosity of her class led her to examine it. Even a country kitchen maid came under its spell instantly. After a pause of mingled admiration and shocked prudery, she sped to the kitchen.
"Seein' is believin'," quoted Eliza, mounting the stairs in her turn. She gazed at the drawing brazenly, with hands resting on hips and head cocked sidewise like an inquisitive hen's.
"Well, I never did!" was her verdict.
Back in the kitchen again, she announced firmly to Mary—
"I'll take in the cheese."
She put the Stilton on the table with a determined air.
"You don't know anything about Miss Sylvia Manning, don't you?" she said, with calm guile.
"Never heard the lady's name before you mentioned it," said Trenholme.
"Mebbe not, but it strikes me you've seen more of her than most folk."
"Eliza," he cried, without any pretense at smiling good humor, "you've been sneaking!"
"Sneakin', you call it? I 'appened to pass your room, an' who could help lookin' in? I was never so taken aback in me life. You could ha' knocked me down with a feather."
"An ostrich feather with an ostrich's leg behind it," was the angry retort.
Eliza's eyes glinted with the fire of battle.
"The shameless ways of girls nowadays!" she breathed. "To let any young man gaze at her in them sort of clothes, if you can call 'em clothes!"
"It was an accident. She didn't know I was there. Anyhow, you dare utter another word about that picture, even hint at its existence, and I'll paint you without any clothes at all. I mean that, so beware!"
"Sorry to interrupt," said a high-pitched voice from the doorway. "You are Mr. John Trenholme, I take it? May I come in? My name's Furneaux."
"Jim, of the Royal Artillery?" demanded Trenholme angrily.
"No. Charles François, of Scotland Yard."
Eliza fled, completely cowed. She began to weep, in noisy gulps.
"I've dud-dud-done it!" she explained to agitated curl papers. "That pup-pup-pore Mr. Trenholme. They've cuc-cuc-come for him. He'll be lul-lul-locked up, an' all along o' my wu-wu-wicked tongue!"
CHAPTER VII
Some Side Issues
Trenholme, rather interested than otherwise, did not blanch at mention of Scotland Yard.
"Walk right in, Mr. Furneaux," he said; he had picked up a few tricks of speech from Transatlantic brethren of the brush met at Julien's. "Have you lunched?"
"Excellently,"