to find in that lonely spot.

But I knew, of course, that James Gilverthwaite himself had not foreseen
this affair, nor thought that I should find a murdered man. And as I at
last drew breath, and lifted myself up a little from staring at the
corpse, a great many thoughts rushed into my head, and began to tumble
about over each other. Was this the man Mr. Gilverthwaite meant me to
meet? Would Mr. Gilverthwaite have been murdered, too, if he had come
there in person? And had the man been murdered for the sake of robbery?
But I answered that last question as soon as I asked it, and in the
negative, for the light of my lamp showed a fine, heavy gold watch-chain
festooned across the man's waistcoat--if murderously inclined thieves had
been at him, they were not like to have left that. Then I wondered if I
had disturbed the murderers--it was fixed in me from the beginning that
there must have been more than one in at this dreadful game--and if they
were still lurking about and watching me from the brushwood; and I made
an effort, and bent down and touched one of the nerveless hands. It was
stiffened already, and I knew then that the man had been dead some time.

And I knew another thing in that moment: poor Maisie, lying awake to
listen for the tap at her window, so that she might get up and peep round
the corner of her blind to assure herself that her Hughie was alive and
safe, would have to lie quaking and speculating through the dark hours of
that night, for here was work that was going to keep me busied till day
broke. I set to it there and then, leaving the man just as I had found
him, and hastening back in the direction of the main road. As luck would
have it, I heard voices of men on Twizel Bridge, and ran right on the
local police-sergeant and a constable, who had met there in the course of
their night rounds. I knew them both, the sergeant being one Chisholm,
and the constable a man named Turndale, and they knew me well enough from