He had no time to think. He had no time to calculate. His wrath was
still hot, though rapidly cooling down before this awful discovery.
Hide it! Hide it! Hide it! That was all he could think. He lifted
the body in his arms, as easily as most men would lift a baby.
Then he laid it down among the brambles close beside the stream.
Something heavy fell out of the pocket as he carried it. The
barrister took no heed. Little matter for that. He laid it down
in fear and trembling. As soon as it was hidden, he fled for his
life. By trackless ways, he walked over the Moor, and returned to
Ivybridge unseen very late in the evening. Ten minutes after he
left the spot, Guy Waring passed by and picked up the pocket-book.
CHAPTER XXV.
LEAD TRUMPS.
Naturally, under these circumstances, it was all in vain that Guy
Waring pursued his investigations into Montague Nevitt's whereabouts.
Neither at Plymouth nor anywhere else along the skirts of Dartmoor
could he learn that anything more had been seen or heard of the
man who called himself "Mr. McGregor." And yet Guy felt sure Nevitt
wouldn't go far from Mambury, as things stood just then; for as
soon as he missed the pocket-book containing the three thousand
pounds, he would surely take some steps to recover it.
Two days later, however, Gilbert Gildersleeve sat in the hotel
at Plymouth, where he had moved from Ivybridge after--well, as he
phrased it to himself, after that unfortunate accident. The blustering
Q.C. was like another man now. For the first time in his life he
knew what it meant to be nervous and timid. Every sound made him
suppress an involuntary start; for as yet he had heard no whisper
of the body being discovered. He couldn't leave the neighbourhood,
however, till the murder was out. Dangerous as he felt it to
remain on the spot, some strange spell seemed to bind him against
his will to Dartmoor. He must stop and hear what local gossip had
to say when the body came to light. And above all, for the present,
he hadn't the courage to go home; he dared not face his own wife
and daughter.
So he stayed on and lounged, and pretended to interest himself with
walks over the hills and up the Tamar valley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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