In parts, the
great spreading trees shut out the light, rendering our investigations
very difficult; but we kept on, my companion advancing with an eagerness
which showed that the fact of the woman's body being there was no mere
surmise.
All through the morning we walked on, our hands badly torn by brambles.
Even Muriel's thick gloves did not wholly protect her, and once when she
received a nasty scratch across the cheek, she stopped and laughingly
exclaimed:
"Now what untruth must I invent to account for that?"
My own coat was badly torn, and more than once I was compelled to
scramble through almost impassable thickets; yet we found no trace of
any previous intruder, and having completed our circle were compelled to
admit that the gruesome evidence of the second crime did not exist at
that spot.
More than once I felt half inclined to tell her how I had actually
discovered the body of the woman, yet on reflection I foresaw that in
such circumstances silence was best. If I desired to solve the strange
complicated enigma which had thus culminated in a double crime, it would
be necessary for me to keep my own counsel and remain patient and
watchful.
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