Langholm fancied he perceived a glimmer of his own enlightenment,
and instinctively he lied.
"We are not likely to get him up here," he said. "This is about the last
place where I should look!"
The Chief Constable took his departure with a curious smile. Langholm
began to feel uneasy; his unforeseen sympathy with Steel assumed the
form of an actual fear on his behalf. Severino was another thorn in his
side. He knew that Rachel had been written to, and fell into a fever of
impatience and despair because the morning did not bring her to his
bedside. She was not coming at all. She had refused to come--or her
husband would not allow it. So he must die without seeing her again! The
man was as unreasonable as sick men will be; nothing would console him
but Langholm's undertaking to go to Normanthorpe himself after lunch and
plead in person with the stony-hearted lady or her tyrannical lord. This
plan suited Langholm well enough. It would pave the way to the "chance"
which he had resolved to give to Rachel's husband.
That resolve was not weakened by successive encounters, first with a
policeman near the entrance gates, next with a trespasser whom Langholm
rightly took for another policeman in plain clothes, and finally with
the Woodgates on their way from the house.
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