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In Buckinghamshire there are two crosses cut in the turf on a spur of the Chilterns, Whiteleaf and Bledlow crosses, which were probably marks for the direction of travellers through the wild and dangerous woodlands, though popular tradition connects them with the memorials of ancient battles between the Saxons and Danes.
I'll stand for no blasted overseer checking my work! Wait till I see the Assistant Commissioner! What the devil has the job to do with the Home office!" "Can't say," murmured Coombes. "But he's evidently a big bug from the way Whiteleaf treated him. He instructed me to stay in the kitchen and keep an eye on Mareno while he prowled about in here."
Flat upon the floor, between the door and the ebony chair, arms extended and eyes staring upward at the ceiling, lay Sir Lucien Pyne, his white shirt front redly dyed. In the hush which had fallen, the footsteps of Inspector Whiteleaf sounded loudly as he opened the final door, and swept the interior of an inner room with the rays of the lantern. The room was barely furnished as an office.
At the moment when Mrs Darvell began to climb Whiteleaf Hill with her heavy basket, Frank was lying at the foot of a big beech-tree in the wood near his home; his face was buried in his hands, and every now and then sobs shook his little thin frame.
But at sight of the broken man who sat there alone, haggard, a subtle change of expression crept into his fierce eyes, and when he spoke again the high-pitched voice was almost gentle. "You had employed these men, sir, to watch " He paused, glancing towards Whiteleaf, who had just entered again, and then in the direction of the inner room where the divisional surgeon was at work.
It was a mild spring evening, and Mrs Frank Darvell was toiling slowly up Whiteleaf Hill on her way back from market. She had walked every step of the way there to sell her ducklings, and now the basket on her arm was heavy with the weight of various small grocery packets.
"Well, I'm proper tired," she said, bumping her basket down with a sigh of relief. "That Whiteleaf Hill do spend one so after a day's marketing." Then glancing at the muddy boots on the hearth: "Bin ploughin'?" Mr Darvell nodded again, and looked inquiringly at his wife's basket. Answering this silent question she said: "I sold 'em fairly well. Mrs Reuben got more; but hers was fatter."
The chill wind blew in his face and sighed among the trees, and instead of the low attic beams there were waving branches over his head. He was not at home, but alone, quite alone in Whiteleaf Wood, with thick darkness all round him.
Weston seemed rather startled by this abrupt dismissal, but the steel-blue eyes of Inspector Kerry were already bent again upon the dead man, and, murmuring "good night," the doctor took his departure, followed by Whiteleaf. "Shut this door," snapped Kerry after the Inspector. "I will call when I want you. You stay, Coombes. Got it all down?"
Inspector Whiteleaf retired, but returned immediately with the clean-shaven man to whom Monte Irvin had been talking when Kerry arrived. "Good evening, doctor," said Kerry. "Do I know your name? Start your notes, Coombes." "My name is Dr. Wilbur Weston, and I live in Albemarle Street." "Who called you?" "Inspector Whiteleaf telephoned to me about half an hour ago." "You examined the dead man?"
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