The Ashiel mystery : $b a detective storyBryce, Marion
General
The Ashiel mystery : $b a detective story
Bryce, Marion
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
"No, he was on ahead. He saw Juliet in the distance, just going up to the
waterfall, but he seems to have taken her for Miss Romaninov, which is
odd, because they aren't in the least like one another, one being tall
and the other short, in the first place, and one fair and the other dark
in the second. He can't have looked very carefully. However, he was very
positive about it till they both assured him that Julia Romaninov had
turned and gone home some time before she had reached the top pool. And I
certainly should have in her place. It doesn't amuse me scrambling over
rocks and scratching my legs in bramble bushes. The path Andy came by
goes along high above the water for half a mile. I hate walking on a
height myself. And for most of that distance the river is not in sight.
If he hadn't been thirsty and come down to the water-side for a drink at
a spring near by, he would never have seen Miss Byrne floating down the
stream, and she would have been in the loch pretty soon. It just shows
how much better it is to drink water than whisky."
"It was lucky he did," said Gimblet. "Does the path pass in sight of the
pool she fell into?"
"No. The banks are high there, and you can't see down into the pool
unless you go to the very edge of the precipice. I did it once, to look
at the waterfall, and I very nearly joined it. It's a nasty giddy place,
though why one should feel inclined to throw oneself down I can't
imagine; but it seems a natural instinct, and it's certainly easier to go
down than up."
"It appears almost miraculous that she wasn't drowned," said Gimblet.
"She certainly can have been in no fit state to bear the events that
followed."
"No, indeed. She has lost everything: father, family and lover at one
blow. You know Lord Ashiel said she was his daughter, and told her he'd
made a will leaving everything to her. For that matter the lawyers say he
didn't--not that I should ever believe anything a lawyer said. They
always mean something you wouldn't expect from their words. They do it, I
believe, to keep in practice for trials, you know, where they have to
make the witnesses say what they don't mean, poor things. And what I
shall have put into my mouth by them, if I'm called as a witness against
poor David, doesn't bear thinking of. But the Lord knows what Ashiel did
with the will, and, as I was saying, it can't be found."
"So I heard," said Gimblet "You talk of being called as a witness, Lady
Ruth. Do you know anything about the case? Where were you when the shot
was fired?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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