I shall never forgive myself."
He banged the table with his fist. "Even now that these unknown fiends
have achieved their object, I am helpless, helpless. There was not a
wisp of smoke to guide me, Knox, and one man cannot search a county."
I sighed wearily.
"Do you know, Harley," I said, "I am thinking of a verse of Kipling's."
"I know!" he interrupted, almost savagely.
"A Snider squibbed in the jungle.
Somebody laughed and fled--"
"Oh, I know, Knox. I heard that damnable laughter, too."
"My God," I whispered, "who was it? What was it? Where did it come
from?"
"As well ask where the shot came from, Knox. Out amongst all those
trees, with a house that might have been built for a sounding-board,
who could presume to say where either came from? One thing we know,
that the shot came from the south."
He leaned upon a corner of the table, staring at me intently.
"From the south?" I echoed.
Harley glanced in the direction of the open door.
"Presently," he said, "we shall have to tell Aylesbury everything that
we know. After all, he represents the law; but unless we can get
Inspector Wessex down from Scotland Yard, I foresee a miscarriage of
justice.
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