You are probably
correct in the latter surmise," he said. "But in any case we are in
agreement as to his being Chermside's acquaintance. That was what I
wanted to get from you."

"Not a very reputable acquaintance, I should imagine," said the great
manufacturer, looking thoughtfully down at the bedraggled tawdriness of
the dead man's attire. "If our young friend from India hadn't been
vouched for by Travers Nugent, I should have put this poor creature down
as a dun or a money-lender's tout. His features are distinctly Hebraic.
I wonder how he got himself drowned in that shallow pool. A drop too
much, eh, and a stumble in the dark?"

But Reggie Beauchamp, regardless of his immaculate flannels, had plunged
knee-deep into the mire. His sailor's eye, used to note every detail,
had perceived something that had escaped the two shore-going gentlemen
with sight impaired by years of office work.

"He wasn't drowned!" he exclaimed, and then, moderating his voice so
that it should not reach the maid-servants on the deserted picnic
ground, he added: "His throat has been cut from ear to ear. By Jove----"

But Reggie pulled himself up all short, and had no more to say. He had
remembered the cry, weird and long-drawn, which Enid and he had heard
from their cosy retreat at the marsh-side two nights ago. And he had
remembered something else of even graver and more personal import--a
reminiscence of the prowl in the dusk which he discreetly forbore from
disclosing till he should have had an opportunity for consulting his
fair partner in that escapade.

CHAPTER VIII

INTERCEPTED

Mademoiselle Louise Aubin possessed all the attributes of her Gallic
blood. She was vain of her voluptuous charms, susceptible to flattery,
and prone to blurt out on the least provocation the scanty ideas in her
empty little head as soon as and whenever they entered it. She was
further endowed with a fiery temper and an eager impetuosity, which
often led her to act without thought of consequences.

In the last-named characteristics was to be found the reason why in the
cool of the evening she set out to walk from the Manor House to
Ottermouth in order to lay information with the police against the man
she believed to be the slayer of Levi Levison. For once in a way she had
said nothing of her purpose in the servants' hall, expecting to score a
greater dramatic effect by announcing on her return that she had been
the means of causing the murderer