Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/133

Rh 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.

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