Dunn noticed that the smile upon his lips was more gentle and winning than ever, the look in his eyes more dark and menacing.
"Well, Dunn, what is it?" he said as pleasantly as he always spoke.
"Mr.Allen," he added to his companion, "this is my man, Dunn, Itold you about, my gardener and chauffeur, and a very industrious steady fellow - and quite trustworthy."He seemed to lay a certain emphasis on the last two words, and Allen put his head on one side and looked at Dunn with an odd, mixture of familiarity, suspicion, hesitation, and an uncertain assumption of superiority, but with no hint of recognition showing.
"Glad to hear it," he said."You always want to know whom you can trust.""Mr.Clive has been murdered," Dunn said abruptly."Poachers, it is said.Did you know?""We heard about it as we came through the village," answered Deede Dawson."Very sad, very dreadful.It will be a great shock to poor Ella, I fear.Take the car on to the garage, will you?" he added.
He drove on up the drive, and at the front door they alighted and entered the house together.Dunn followed, and getting into the car, drove it to the garage, where he busied himself cleaning it.
As he worked he wondered very much what was the meaning of this sudden appearance on terms of friendship with Deede Dawson of this man Allen, whom he had last seen trying to break into the house at night.
Was Allen an accomplice of Deede Dawson, or a dupe, or, more probably, a new recruit?
At any rate, to Dunn it seemed that the crisis he had expected and prepared for was now fast approaching, and he told himself that if he had failed in Clive's case, those others he was working for he must not fail to save.
"Looks as if Dawson's plans were nearly ready," he said to himself.
"Well, so are mine."
He finished his work and shutting the garage door, he was turning away when he saw Ella coming towards him.
She was extremely pale, and her eyes seemed larger than ever, and very bright against the deathly whiteness of her cheeks.
She was wearing a blouse that was cut a little low, and he notice with a kind of terror how soft and round was her throat, like a column of pale and perfect ivory.
He hoped she would not speak to him, for he thought perhaps he could not bear it if she did, but she halted near by, and said:
"This is very dreadful about poor Mr.Clive.""Very," he answered moodily.
"Why should poachers kill him?" she asked."Why should they want to?""I don't know," he answered, watching not her but her soft throat, where he could see a pulse fluttering."Perhaps it wasn't poachers,"he added.
She started violently, and gave a quick look that seemed to make yet more certain the certainty he already entertained.
"Who else could it be?" she asked in a low voice.
He did not answer.
After what seemed a long time she said:
"You asked me a question once - do you remember?"He shook his head.
"Why don't you speak? Why can't you speak?" she cried angrily.
"Why can't you.say something instead of just shaking your head?""You see, I've asked you so many questions," he said slowly.
"Perhaps I shall ask you some more some day - which question do you mean?""I mean when you asked me if I had ever met any one who spoke in a very shrill, high whistling sort of voice? Do you remember?""Yes," he said."You wouldn't tell me."
"Well, I will now," she said."I did meet a man once with a voice like that.Do you remember the night you, came here that I drove away in the car with a packing-case you carried downstairs?""Do I - remember?" he gasped, for that memory, and the thought of how she had driven away into the night with, that grisly thing behind her on the car had never since left his mind by night or by day.
"Yes," she exclaimed impatiently."Why do you keep staring so? Are you as stupid as you choose to look? Do you remember?""I remember," he answered heavily."I remember very well.""Well, then, the man I took that packing-case to had a voice just like that - high and shrill, whistling almost.""I thought as much," said Dunn."May I ask you another question?"She nodded.
"May I smoke?"
She nodded again with a touch of impatience.
He took a cigarette from his pocket and put it in his mouth and lighted a match, but the match, when he had lighted it, he used to put light to a scrap of folded paper with writing on it, like a note.
This piece of paper he used to light his cigarette with and when he had done so he watched the paper burn to an ash, not dropping it to the ground till the little flame stung his fingers.
The ash that had fallen he ground into the path where they stood with the heel of his boot.
"What have you burned there?" she asked, as if she suspected it was something of importance he had destroyed.
In fact it was the note that had fallen from dead John Clive's hand wherein Ella had asked him to meet her at the oak where he had met his death.
That bit of paper would have been enough, Dunn thought, to place a harsh hempen noose about the soft white throat he watched where the little pulse still fluttered up and down.But now it was burnt and utterly destroyed, and no one would ever see it.
At the thought he laughed and she drew back, very startled.
"Oh, what is the matter?" she exclaimed.
"Nothing," he answered."Nothing in all the world except that Ilove you."
