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Page 36
"I came," answered Collingwood, who was not inclined to bandy phrases
with Pratt, "to see if I could be of any practical use."
"Just so, sir," said Pratt. "Mr. Eldrick sent me here for the same
purpose. There's really not much to do--beyond the necessary
arrangements, which are already pretty forward. Going back to town,
sir?" he went on, following Collingwood out to his motor-car, which
stood waiting in the drive.
"No!" replied Collingwood. "I'm going to send this man to Barford to
fetch my bag to the inn down there in the village, where I'm going to
stay for a few days. Did you hear that?" he continued, turning to the
driver. "Go back to Barford--get my bag from the _Station Hotel_
there--bring it to the _Normandale Arms_--I'll meet you there on your
return."
The car went off, and Collingwood, with a nod to Pratt, was about to
turn down a side path towards the village. But Pratt stopped him.
"Would you care to see the place where the accident happened, Mr.
Collingwood?" he said. "It's close by--won't take five minutes."
Collingwood hesitated a moment; then he turned back. It might be well,
he reflected, if he made himself acquainted with all the circumstances
of this case, simple as they seemed.
"Thank you," he said. "If it's so near."
"This way, sir," responded Pratt. He led his companion along the front
of the house, through the shrubberies at the end of a wing, and into a
plantation by a path thickly covered with pine needles. Presently they
emerged upon a similar track, at right angles to that by which they had
come, and leading into a denser part of the woods. And at the end of a
hundred yards of it they came to a barricade, evidently of recent
construction, over which Pratt stretched a hand. "There!" he said.
"That's the bridge, sir." Collingwood looked over the barricade. He saw
that he and Pratt were standing at the edge of one thick plantation of
fir and pine; the edge of a similar plantation stretched before them
some ten yards away. But between the two lay a deep, dark ravine, which,
immediately in front of the temporary barricade, was spanned by a narrow
rustic bridge--a fragile-looking thing of planks, railed in by boughs of
trees. And in the middle was a jagged gap in both floor and side-rails,
showing where the rotten wood had given way.
"I'll explain, Mr. Collingwood," said the clerk presently. "I knew this
park, sir--I knew it well, before the late Mr. John Mallathorpe bought
the property. That path at the other end of the bridge makes a short cut
down to the station in the valley--through the woods and the lower part
of the park. I came up that path, from the station, on Saturday
afternoon, intending to cross this bridge and go on to the house, where
I had private business. When I got to the other end of the bridge,
there, I saw the gap in the middle. And then I looked down into the
cut--there's a road--a paved road--down there, and I saw--him! And so I
made shift to scramble down--stiff job it was!--to get to him. But he
was dead, Mr. Collingwood--stone dead, sir!--though I'm certain he
hadn't been dead five minutes. And----"
"Aye, an' he'd never ha' been dead at all, wouldn't young Squire, if
only his ma had listened to what I telled her!" interrupted a voice
behind them. "He'd ha' been alive at this minute, he would, if his ma
had done what I said owt to be done--now then!"
Collingwood turned sharply--to confront an old man, evidently one of the
woodmen on the estate who had come up behind them unheard on the thick
carpeting of pine needles. And Pratt turned, too--with a keen look and a
direct question.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"
"I know what I'm talking about, young gentleman," said the man doggedly.
"I ain't worked, lad and man, on this one estate nine-and-forty
years--and happen more--wi'out knowin' all about it. I tell'd Mrs.
Mallathorpe on Friday noon 'at that there owd brig 'ud fall in afore
long if it worn't mended. I met her here, at this very place where we're
standin', and I showed her 'at it worn't safe to cross it. I tell'd her
't she owt to have it fastened up theer an' then. It's been rottin' for
many a year, has this owd brig--why, I mind when it wor last repaired,
and that wor years afore owd Mestur Mallathorpe bowt this estate!"
"When do you say you told Mrs. Mallathorpe all that?" asked Pratt.
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