Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/152

Rh night. Say at dusk. Now for the scene of death. Where is it?"

"Just by a bridge on a by-road somewhere between here and Byfleet Station."

"I ask you, why does a gentleman of fashion about to commit suicide come and look for a bridge on a by-road somewhere between here and Byfleet Station?"

"Somebody's took some pains in this Charlecote business," the Superintendent said.

Reggie laughed. "The Superintendent touches the spot—as ever. Come on!"

He stopped his car some distance from the bridge, and they went forward on foot.

"There's a big car been over here," Bell said. "Yet you wouldn't think it was much of a motor road." It was a narrow gravel road and very loose. Just below the steep pitch of the bridge a car had been stopped, and in stopping or starting again had torn up the loose gravel. Thence to the canal was only half a dozen yards. The path was much trampled and the grass and bushes by the bank beaten down. "All that may have been done fishing him out," Bell said. "But that don't explain the car. They took him off in a wood cart. I suppose since motors were invented there never was one came down this road and stopped just here."

"Not till last night," Lomas nodded.