On the way back, I proposed to Griselda that we should make a detour and go round by the barrow. I was anxious to see if the police were at work and if so, what they found. Griselda, however, had things to do at home, so I was left to make the expedition on my own.
I found Constable Hurst in charge of operations.
“No sign so far, sir,” he reported. “And yet it stands to reason that this is the only place for a cache .”
His use of the word cache puzzled me for a moment, as he pronounced it catch, but his real meaning occurred to me almost at once.
“Whatimeantersay is, sir, where else could the young woman be going starting into the wood by that path? It leads to Old Hall, and it leads here, and that’s about all.”
“I suppose,” I said, “that Inspector Slack would disdain such a simple course as asking the young lady straight out.”
“Anxious not to put the wind up her,” said Hurst. “Anything she writes to Stone or he writes to her may throw light on things—once she knows we’re on to her, she’d shut up like that .”
Like what exactly was left in doubt, but I personally doubted Miss Gladys Cram ever being shut up in the way described. It was impossible to imagine her as other than overflowing with conversation.
“When a man’s an h’impostor, you want to know why he’s an h’impostor,” said Constable Hurst didactically.
“Naturally,” I said.