"
"But why should Mr. Camber have hated the Colonel?"
"I cannot say, sir. I wish I could tell."
"Was your master popular in the West Indies?" I asked.
"Well, sir--" Pedro hesitated--"perhaps not so well liked."
"No," I said. "I had gathered as much."
The man withdrew, and I continued my solitary meal, listening to the
song of the skylarks, and thinking how complex was human existence,
compared with any other form of life beneath the sun.
How to employ my time until Harley should return I knew not. Common
delicacy dictated an avoidance of Val Beverley until she should have
recovered from the effect of Inspector Aylesbury's gross insinuations,
and I was curiously disinclined to become involved in the gloomy
formalities which ensue upon a crime of violence. Nevertheless, I felt
compelled to remain within call, realizing that there might be
unpleasant duties which Pedro could not perform, and which must
therefore devolve upon Val Beverley.
I lighted my pipe and walked out on to the sloping lawn. A gardener was
at work with a big syringe, destroying a patch of weeds which had
appeared in one corner of the velvet turf.
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