Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/194

 CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH STRANGE DISCLOSURES ARE MADE

The afternoon was chill and wet as I climbed the hill to Greenlaw.

The sudden disappearance of the tenants of Rannoch was, I found, on every one's tongue in Dumfries. In the smoke-room of the railway hotel three men were discussing it with many grimaces and sinister hints, and the talkative young woman behind the bar asked me my opinion of the strange goings-on up at the Castle.

As I walked on alone, with the dark line of woods crowning the hill-top before me, the scene of that double tragedy, I again calmly reviewed the situation. I longed to go to the hospital and see Hylton Chater, yet when I recollected the part he had played with Hornby on board the Lola, I naturally hesitated. He was allied with Hornby, apparently against Leithcourt, although the latter was Hornby's friend.

What, I wondered, had transpired in the library of that grey old castle which stood out boldly before me, dark and grim, as I plodded on through the rain. How had Leithcourt succeeded in rendering his enemy insensible and hiding him in that cupboard. Did he believe that he had killed him?