The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent LoveLe Queux, William
General
The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love
Le Queux, William
Spy stories
True to her promise, she had sent me a note by one of the grooms asking
me to help search for her bracelet, and I had driven over at once to
Rannoch and found her alone awaiting me. The shooting party had gone
over to a distant part of the estate, therefore we were able to stroll
together up the hill and commence our investigations without let or
hindrance. She was sensibly dressed in a short tweed skirt, high
shooting-boots and a tam-o'-shanter hat, while I also had on an old
shooting-suit and carried a thick serviceable stick with which I could
prod likely spots.
On arrival at the wood I asked her opinion which was the most likely
corner, but she replied:
"I know so little of this place, Mr. Gregg. You have known it for years,
while this is only my first season here."
"Very well," I answered. "Let us place ourselves in the position of the
murderer, who probably knew the wood and wished to conceal a body in the
vicinity without risk of conveying it far. On this, the left side, the
wood has been thinned out for nearly half a mile, and therefore affords
but little cover, while here, to the right, it slopes down gently to the
valley and is very thick and partly impenetrable. There can therefore
have been no two courses open to him. He would look for a likely place
to the right. Let us start here, and first take a small circle,
examining every bush carefully. The body may have easily been pushed in
beneath a thicket and well escape observation."
And so together, after taking our bearings, we started off, working our
way into the thick undergrowth, beating with our sticks, and making
minute examination of every bush or heap of dead leaves. In parts, the
great spreading trees shut out the light, rendering our investigations
very difficult; but we kept on, my companion advancing with an eagerness
which showed that the fact of the woman's body being there was no mere
surmise.
All through the morning we walked on, our hands badly torn by brambles.
Even Muriel's thick gloves did not wholly protect her, and once when she
received a nasty scratch across the cheek, she stopped and laughingly
exclaimed:
"Now what untruth must I invent to account for that?"
My own coat was badly torn, and more than once I was compelled to
scramble through almost impassable thickets; yet we found no trace of
any previous intruder, and having completed our circle were compelled to
admit that the gruesome evidence of the second crime did not exist at
that spot.
More than once I felt half inclined to tell her how I had actually
discovered the body of the woman, yet on reflection I foresaw that in
such circumstances silence was best. If I desired to solve the strange
complicated enigma which had thus culminated in a double crime, it would
be necessary for me to keep my own counsel and remain patient and
watchful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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