Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/148

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134
A MATTER OF MILLIONS

"Then the body is still in the glen, where you left it?"

"Yes. If you wish, I will take you to the spot. I can drive you and your assistant up there."

"Certainly. Let us go," he exclaimed, rising at once and ringing his bell.

"Get three good lanterns and some matches, and put them in this gentleman's trap outside," he said to the constable who answered his summons. "And tell Gilbert Campbell that I want him to go with me up to Rannoch Wood."

"Yes, sir," answered the man; and the door again closed.

"It's a pity — a thousand pities, Mr. Gregg, that you didn't stop those two men who buried the body."

"They were already across the stream, and disappearing into the thicket before I mounted the rock," I explained. "Besides, at the moment I had no suspicion of what they'd been doing. I believed them to be stragglers from a neighbouring shooting-party who had lost their way."

"Ah, most unfortunate!" he said. "I hope they won't escape us. If they're foreigners, they are not likely to get away. But if they're English or Scots, then I fear there's but little chance of our coming up with them. Yesterday at the inquest the identity of the murdered man was strictly preserved, and the inquiry was adjourned for a fortnight."

"Of course my name was not mentioned?" I said.

"Of course not," was the detective's reply. Then