When Hutcheson replied from Leghorn, and when I discovered where Olinto
was employed, I might perhaps follow up the clues from that end. I might
find his wife Armida and learn something of importance from her. So I
was hopeful, and by reason of that hope remained silent.
Muriel was untiring in her activity. Hither and thither she went,
beating down the high bracken and tangles of weeds, poking with her
stick into every hole and corner, and going further and further into the
wood in the certainty that the body was therein concealed.
For my own part, however, I was not too sanguine of success. The portion
of the wood which we had already exhausted seemed to be the most likely
point. To carry the body far would require assistance, and in my own
mind I believed the crime to have been the work of one person. There was
no path in the wood in that direction, but soon we came to a deep
wooded ravine of the existence of which I was in ignorance. It was a
kind of small glen through which a rivulet flowed, but the banks were
covered with a thick impenetrable undergrowth out of which sprang many
fine old trees, a place that had apparently existed for centuries
undisturbed, for here and there a giant trunk that had decayed and
fallen lay across the bank, or had rolled into the rocky bed far below.
Pages:
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154