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Page 72
He got up to go. He wanted to be alone--alone, at least, with
Bill. Mrs. Norbury had given him many things to think over, but
the great outstanding fact which had emerged was this: that
Cayley had reason to hate Mark,--Mrs. Norbury had given him that
reason. To hate? Well, to be jealous, anyhow. But that was
enough.
"You see," he said to Bill, as they walked back, "we know that
Cayley is perjuring himself and risking himself over this
business, and that must be for one of two reasons. Either to
save Mark or to endanger him. That is to say, he is either
whole-heartedly for him or whole-heartedly against him. Well,
now we know that he is against him, definitely against him."
"But, I say, you know," protested Bill, "one doesn't necessarily
try to ruin one's rival in love."
"Doesn't one?" said Antony, turning to him with a smile.
Bill blushed.
"Well, of course, one never knows, but I mean--"
"You mightn't try to ruin him, Bill, but you wouldn't perjure
yourself in order to get him out of a trouble of his own making."
"Lord! no."
"So that of the two alternatives the other is the more likely."
They had come to the gate into the last field which divided them
from the road, and having gone through it, they turned round and
leant against it, resting for a moment, and looking down at the
house which they had left.
"Jolly little place, isn't it?" said Bill.
"Very. But rather mysterious."
"In what way?"
"Well, where's the front door?"
"The front door? Why, you've just come out of it."
"But isn't there a drive, or a road or anything?"
Bill laughed.
"No; that's the beauty of it to some people. And that's why it's
so cheap, and why the Norburys can afford it, I expect. They're
not too well off."
"But what about luggage and tradesmen and that kind of thing?"
"Oh, there's a cart-track, but motor-cars can't come any nearer
than the road" he turned round and pointed "up there. So the
week-end millionaire people don't take it. At least, they'd have
to build a road and a garage and all the rest of it, if they
did."
"I see," said Antony carelessly, and they turned round and
continued their walk up to the road. But later on he remembered
this casual conversation at the gate, and saw the importance of
it.
CHAPTER XVI
Getting Ready for the Night
What was it which Cayley was going to hide in that pond that
night? Antony thought that he knew now. It was Mark's body.
From the beginning he had seen this answer coming and had drawn
back from it. For, if Mark had been killed, it seemed such a
cold-blooded killing. Was Cayley equal to it? Bill would have
said "No," but that was because he had had breakfast with Cayley,
and lunch with him, and dinner with him; had ragged him and
played games with him. Bill would have said "No," because Bill
wouldn't have killed anybody in cold blood himself, and because
he took it for granted that other people behaved pretty much as
he did. But Antony had no such illusions. Murders were done;
murder had actually been done here, for there was Robert's dead
body. Why not another murder?
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