She did not answer immediately, and it was plain that she was trying to think what was best to say. The fury went out of her face, leaving it cold and rather wary.
"No," she said at last; "I thought he was."
"What made you think he wasn't?"
"He said something," she replied sullenly. "Yes? What did he say?"
"I don't know. I didn't catch it."
"You're a bad liar," he commented. "I suppose it didn't occur to you to render a little first aid?"
"I tried to stop the bleeding." She unclenched her right hand and disclosed a handkerchief saturated with blood. "I saw it was no use. He died almost as soon as I got here."
"And you didn't think well of trying to stop my car to claim assistance?"
She bit her lip, shooting one of her sudden fiery glances at him. "What was the use? You'd only think I'd done it."
"A little cold-blooded, aren't you?" he suggested.
"You can think what you like," she told him. "lt makes difference to me."
"You're mistaken. What I think is likely to make a considerable difference to you. Come here a moment." He grasped her arm above the elbow and drew her towards the smaller car. "Don't stand in the light," he said irritably and once more bent to inspect the quiet form inside. "Did you search his pockets?"
She shuddered. "No."
"Someone did." He reached his hand in at the window and carefully slid it between the dead man's coat and body. "No notecase, no pocketbook." He withdrew his hand and again let the girl go. "Damn!" he said unemotionally and wiped the blood off his lingers.
The girl said: "I - I feel rather sick."
Mr. Amberley raised one eyebrow. "I'm not surprised," he said politely.
She sat down on the running-board of the car and put her head down on her knees. Mr. Amberley stood wiping his fingers on his handkerchief and frowning at her. Presently she sat up. "I'm all right now. What are you going to do?"
"Inform the police."
She looked up at him squarely. "About me?"
"Probably."
Her hands kneaded themselves together. She said bitterly: "If you think I did this why did you give me back my gun? I might easily shoot you too."
"I don't think it. But I should very much like to know what you were doing here at this hour and why you carry a gun."
She was silent. He said, after a moment's pause: "Not exactly communicative, are you?"
"Why should I be? You're not a policeman."
"Just as well for you I'm not. You'd better burn that handkerchief." He turned away towards his own car.
She got up, surprised and uncertain. "Are you - are you letting me go?" she asked, staring after him.
He opened the door of the Bentley. "I'm not a policeman," he reminded her over his shoulder.
"But - but why?" she persisted.
He got into his car and slammed the door. "If you did it," he informed her pleasantly, "you're such a damned little fool the police will precious soon find you out for themselves. Good night."
The car moved forward, was backed again a few feet, straightened, and driven away down the lane the way it had come.
The girl was left standing irresolutely beside the Austin. She watched the Bentley's tail-lamp disappear round the bend in the road and blinked rather dazedly.
She felt in her pocket for her torch and drew it out. Switching it on she turned once more to the car. The blood had stopped oozing some time ago and had congealed in the chill evening air. The girl directed her torch at the body and cautiously put her hand in at the open window and felt in the dead man's outer pockets. There was a cheap tobacco pouch in one, and a pipe; some matches in the other. She tried to insinuate her hand into his trousers pockets, but she could not do it without moving the body. She drew back with a shiver and glanced up and down the deserted lane.
The mist, though it was still patchy, was growing thicker. The girl gave her shoulders a shrug and turned away. Her torch, flashing over the ground at her feet, revealed her handkerchief lying where she had dropped it. She picked it up, all wet with blood as it was, and screwed it up in her hand.
The torchlight made the mist look like a blank wall ahead, but served to show where the ditch ran beside the lane. The girl began to walk back along the road in the direction of Pittingly. At the top of a slight rise the fog was no more than a wisp of white smoke, and a gap in the hedge, some few yards farther, was easily distinguishable. There was a stile and a footpath leading across the fields. She swung herself up and over and strode out briskly, eastward. The path led to another stile and on, cutting across a beechwood to more fields, and ahead, the twinkling lights of Upper Nettlefold.
Instead of turning north, through the village, the girl set off down the road to the south, following it for some five hundred yards till a rough lane, hardly better than a cart-track, was reached. A board nailed to a weatherbeaten gatepost bore the legend "Ivy Cottage' in somewhat crooked letters, and a little way down the lane a white gate gleamed.
The girl opened it and trod up the roughly flagged path to the door. It was not locked and she went in, shutting it behind her. Immediately before her stairs rose sharply between two walls to the upper floor. On either side was a door, one leading into the kitchen and the other, on the right, into the living room of the cottage.
It stood ajar. The girl pushed it wide and stood on the threshold, leaning against the wall. Her dark scornful eyes rested on the one occupant of the room, a young man sprawling in a chair by the table, blinking owlishly across at her.
She gave a hard little laugh. "Sobered up yet?"
The young man sat up and tried to push his chair back. "I'm all right," he said thickly. "Where - where've you been?"
She came right into the room and pushed the door to behind her. It shut with a bang that made the man start.
"My God, you make me sick!" she said bitterly. "Where have I been? You know very well where I've been!
You're rotten, Mark! A rotten, drunken swine!"
"Oh, dry up!" he said angrily. He staggered to his feet and brushed past her to the door. She heard him presently in the scullery and guessed that he was dowsing his fuddled head in the sink. Her lip curled. She pulled off her hat and threw it on to a chair and went over to turn down the oil-lamp, which was smoking.
The man came back into the room. He looked ashamed and would not meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Shirley," he muttered. "Don't know how it happened. I swear I didn't have more than a couple of drinks — well, three at the outside. I didn't even mean to go into the damned pub, but that farmer chap from what's the name of the place - ?"
"Oh, what does it matter?" she said impatiently. "You couldn't even keep off the drink for one night. You knew what you'd got to do, too."
"Oh, don't rag me, Shirley!" he said, a kind of weary exasperation in his voice. "All right, all right, I know I'm a swine. You needn't rub it in. Had to meet that fellow, hadn't I? I suppose you went instead."
She took the gun out of her pocket and laid it down and began to unbuckle her coat. "Yes, I went," she said briefly.
"Nothing in it, I suppose? I've always said it was a hoax. Only you would come down to this rotten hole and make me live in a filthy, draughty cottage all to go chasing red herrings…' He broke off, his eyes riveted on her coat. "Gosh, Shirley - what's that?" he asked hoarsely.
She put the coat down. "Blood I shall have to burn it."
He turned a sickly colour and grasped at the edge of the table. "What - what happened?" he said. "You didn't you didn't use the gun, did you?"
"I didn't have to. He was dead."
"Dead?" he repeated stupidly. "What do you mean - dead?"
"Shot. So you see it wasn't such a red herring after all."
He sat down, still staring. "Gosh!" he said again. He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. "Who did it?"