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A sort of blight it would seem had descended upon humanity in Upper Crossleys. It was all very curious. Reflecting upon the matter, and sometimes interjecting a word or two into the purely technical and very desultory conversation proceeding between the landlord and Hawkins, I sat looking from one to the other, more than ever convinced that no friendship was lost between them.
As a rule she lay about in a Mother Hubbard, barefoot, with a flower in her dark hair; but now, in white silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, she was doing up a pink muslin dress which was the newest she had. "You're making yourself very smart," he said. "Where are you going?" "I'm going to the Crossleys." "I'll come with you." "Why?" she asked coolly.
Amid the alarms and excursions which had terminated my visit to Upper Crossleys, Gatton I supposed had forgotten to refer to this matter; but I did not doubt that the paragraph was an inspired one issued from Scotland Yard.
It was, then, this particular country about Upper Crossleys over which the cloud hung; and I wondered if the district had been one of those growing rare nowadays which had flourished under the protection of the "big house" and had decayed with the decay of the latter. It had been a common enough happening in the old days, and I felt disposed to adopt this explanation.
This apprehension was strengthened no doubt by my memories of Gatton's last words as I had been on the point of setting out from Upper Crossleys. "With their Friar's Park base destroyed, Mr. Addison," he had said, "they will be forced to fly to that other abode, at present unknown, from which I believe they conducted the elaborate assassination of Sir Marcus.
The postal deliveries in Upper Crossleys were eccentric and unreliable, but having glanced through the cuttings enclosed, I partook of a hasty lunch and sat down to the task of preparing a column for the Planet which should not deflect public interest from the known central figures in the tragedy but which at the same time should hint at new developments.
If that were so, then the uncanny visitant to my cottage had pursued me to Upper Crossleys! Or could it be the fact that she had preceded me? Perhaps Gatton had not confided the whole of his ideas to me perhaps, as I had already suspected, the heart of "the Oritoga mystery" lay here and not in London.
Listen then: all these clews seemed to point to Friar's Park, but the receipt of your message mentioning one Damar Greefe as being a suspicious party, and asking me to look up his record, quite tipped the scales. I saw, frankly, that you had made a false move, but nevertheless it served my purpose, and I determined to look into the Crossleys end of the inquiry personally, without giving Dr.
He began to look out for a wife, and the history of his courtship is curious as well as interesting. The Crossleys seem to have had the good fortune to fall in with excellent wives; and the prosperity of the family is quite as much due to the Crossley women as to the Crossley men. Martha Crossley, the future wife of John Crossley, was born at Folly Hall, near the Ambler Thorn Bar.
Nevertheless I kept my hand upon the pistol in my pocket and proceeded at an increased pace during the latter half of my journey; nor am I ashamed to admit that the lights of the Abbey Inn were a welcome sight, and it was with a feeling of relief that, leaving the highroad behind me, I found myself again in the village street of Upper Crossleys. What to expect next, I knew not.
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