Next morning was equally chilly and dismal, and after the doctor went
out to visit a case, I sat over the fire resolved to stay there till Mr.
Bolton came and explained himself. I stayed there all morning, but he
never came, and no more did Dr. Rendall. Our dinner hour approached and
passed, and at last I sat down and had my meal alone. I had just
finished when I heard the front door open sharply and the doctor's step
in the passage. It struck me instantly as curiously quick for him. He
entered the dining room and I saw at once that something was very much
the matter.
"Bolton has been murdered," he said abruptly. "His body has just been
found in the sea."
XI
AN EYE-OPENER
I leapt to my feet and stared at him. "Drowned?" I gasped.
"No, he was shot first with a pistol at close quarters. I've just been
examining the body."
"Where was it found?"
"Away right at the very North end."
Yesterday's episode rushed into my mind.
"At the very end?"
"Practically."
"It wasn't by any chance as much as half a mile on this side?"
He stared at me curiously and I remembered that this was certainly an odd
enquiry, and also that Mr. Hobhouse was speaking very concisely.
"No," he said. "Why do you ask?"
I took refuge in an ultra-Hobhousian explanation of how I had been there
myself a few days ago, and it had struck me as a very murderous looking
place, and then I asked,
"Is anything more known, doctor?"
"No," he answered, and then added abruptly and with unusual energy,
"This is absolutely damnable!"
He walked out of the room again as he spoke, and I was left to my
thoughts.
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