The Mystery of the Skeleton Key

He was flushed, and lethargic, and very difficult to move to further efforts when the meal was over; but we got him out at last and went to work. It did not last long with him. It must have been somewhere short of three o’clock that he shouldered his gun and came plodding to me across the stubble.

‘Look here, Viv,’ he said, ‘I’m going home. Make my apologies to Orsden, and keep it up with him; but I’m no good, and I’ve had enough of it.’

He turned instantly with the word, giving a short laugh over the meaning expressed obviously enough, I dare say, in my eyes, and began to stride away.

‘No,’ he called, ‘I’m not going to shoot myself, and I’m not going to let you make an ass of me. So long!’

I had to let him go. Any further obstruction from me, and I knew that his temper would have gone to pieces. I gave his message to Orsden, and we two continued the shoot without him. But it was a joyless business, and we were not very long in making an end of it. We parted in the road—Orsden for the Bit and Halter and the turning to Leighway, and I for the gates of Wildshott. It was near five o’clock, and a grey still evening. As I passed the stables, a white-faced groom came hurrying to stop me with a piece of staggering news. One of the maids, he said, had been found murdered, shot dead, that afternoon in the Bishop’s Walk.

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