To look at, he had not in the very least the air of a man over whose head a terrible menace hung. Indeed, I have rarely sat down at a table with a less personally odious young murderer. He was lithe and of a darkish brown complexion, a perfect anatomy of graven and incised muscle when later I saw him bathe, and with hands the movements of which were full of power and grace. Then there were his eyes. Of all his features his mouth was that which communicated the least, except when he smiled. With the rest of us I am afraid that our mouths generally communicate the most.

I knew, at the time of this our peep forward, that Philip had had his Éclaircissement with him, but had no idea of what had passed between them. Calling at Lennox Street one midday on my way to the office I had found the house shut up and even Rooke unexpectedly gone. Therefore I half expected that Philip would tell me the whole story on the night of my arrival at Santon. In fact, I gave him every opportunity to do so, remaining behind after all but he and I had gone to bed. But he talked about anything else, and at half-past ten rose, yawned, said he thought he would turn in, apologized again for the change of my room, and gave me my candle. The same thing happened the next night.

On the third night I asked him point blank.

"Eh?" he said. "Oh, that's all right—so far, at any rate. He doesn't know anything about it."

"What!" I exclaimed. "Know nothing about it!... What do you mean—that he was too stunned or dazed or something to remember?"

"Oh, no, I don't mean that exactly," Esdaile replied. "He remembers that part of it all right. It was the other I didn't tell him."

"What other?"

"Why, that anybody else knows anything about the—accident."

"But didn't you mention the shooting to him, if there was any?"

"Oh, he admits that, of course."

"Then in that case he knows you know?"

"Of course he knows I know. How could I ask him if I didn't know? What he doesn't know is that you fellows know. So I told him the best thing he could do was to come down here and get fit again, and not say anything to Joan."

"And—he agreed not to say anything to Joan?" I exclaimed in astonishment.

"Certainly. What good would that do? Look here: he's here getting himself well again; I'm here painting; and you're here on a holiday. If there's any trouble ahead we can't stop it, and so it's no good worrying about it. Don't you think I'm right?"

"Oh ... very well," I said in bewilderment, suddenly ceasing my questions; and I took my candle and went up to my little room over the hen-house with somewhat mixed feelings.

Just look at a few of the ingredients of the mixture. Here was Joan, knowing nothing about anything except that her lover had had a tumble, had given her a few weeks of torturing anxiety, but was now blessedly up and about again and in her pocket all day long. Then there was this Charles Valentine Smith, also knowing nothing (for apparently a mere trifle like shooting a man and admitting that you shot him didn't count), and, with the Brand of Cain on his untroubled brow, offering Joan his blood-stained hand in the most matter-of-fact way in the world. And here was Philip, apparently accepting the whole extraordinary situation with complete calm. I admit that I found all this serenity just a little perplexing.

But look at the charm of the situation for me as a novelist! Few of us have the opportunity of studying what I think I may call the amenities of murder at first hand. I dare say that grim mutterings À la Specter of Hangman Hollow would have bored me, writhings and agonies made me uncomfortable; but this new view of murder I found full of pleasing interest. And the whole of the interest lay in seeing, hearing and asking no questions. Philip was "there painting," I on a holiday. Very well. I was content.

And, in case you have any preconceived notions about the daily trifling routine of murderers' lives, I can only wish you had been at Santon with me at that time. As far as I could see, not a cloud marred the blue heaven of these young people's days. They disappeared as soon as breakfast was cleared away and returned when they returned. I don't for a moment suppose that the intervening hours were spent in the contemplation of death, judgment or the burden of undivulged crime. Chummy enjoyed his pipe, and, as he sat at high tea, idolized by the Esdaile boys because he flew, ate as heartily as ever in his pre-murder days. If his crash on the Lennox Street roof was not mentioned, that seemed to be only because everything had ended perfectly happily and there was nothing more to be said about it. In fact, here is a bit of conversation, taken almost at random, just to show you the way to be entirely happy is to shoot somebody and say nothing to your best girl about it.

Coming down to breakfast one morning I thought it my duty to administer a sharp rebuke to Miss Merrow about the throwing of a handful of hen-corn into my window in order (she said) to wake me.

"I had been up ten minutes, I had shaved, and was more than half dressed," I said sternly. "I'll tell you what you are doing; you are trying to train those hens to come into my room by throwing corn in. I have now to inform you that I intend to write this morning, and so shall not be able to relieve you of your duties down on the shore."

"Oh, I say, sir——" young Smith began, but I thought fit to put a spoke into his wheel also.

"Not a word!" I ordered him. "Hen-corn has been thrown into my room. What was thrown into your room yesterday morning?"

(She had tossed up to his casement a bud of the William Allen Richardson that grew up the cottage end. Coming round the corner from an early stroll up the dewy paddock I had seen her do it, as well as the little token from her lips that went with it.)

"I don't care which room I'm given, but I will not share it with poultry," I continued firmly. "Also I object to this unfair discrimination about things thrown in at windows. So understand that I am busy writing this morning."

"Well, we're going to Flaunton in the trap," said Joan defiantly.

"Children," I said, turning to them, "Mr. Smith and Miss Merrow are going to Flaunton in the trap. The tuckshop at Flaunton is a much better one than the Santon one, and there are smugglers there. They are armed to the teeth, and they carry contraband into their echoing caves usually at about midday."

"That," declared Joan, "I call mean! Bringing the children in!"

"It's no worse than bringing the hens in," I retorted; and our murderer guffawed and took another egg.

I cannot say that I gained much by my protest, since, having put the idea into their heads, I had to hire the station fly and take the children to Flaunton myself. But it was a change from the sands, and it gave me the opportunity for studying the blood-stained path of their dalliance against a fresh background.