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I imagined that she knew of the possible relationship which Lord Ashiel supposed might exist between himself and her, and that she was searching for evidence of her birth.
He sent Gimblet a couple of brace of grouse, which the detective devoured with great satisfaction, and for the next week no more letters bearing a Scotch postmark were delivered at the Whitehall flat. "Here they come again." Lord Ashiel spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper, and Juliet crouched low against the peaty wall of the butt.
"In the meantime, as I stood in the dark garden, watching the girl ransack the private papers of her dead host, I felt no fear of her finding what she was looking for. Lord Ashiel had convinced me that he would hide his secret affairs more carefully than that; and, as I expected, the time came when she gave up the search and departed the way she had come.
They all clustered round us with questions and exclamations, but Lord Ashiel would say no more just then, and only smiled and beamed, and nodded mysteriously. 'I am not going to answer any questions till I have had a talk with Juliet, he said. 'This is as much news to her as it is to any of you, and it is only fair that she should be the first to hear the story.
Side by side were the rifles used by the uncle and nephew for stalking, Gimblet knew from Mark that the Mannlicher was his, while Lord Ashiel had apparently used a Mauser or Ross sporting rifle, as there was one of each in the case. Gimblet lifted down the Mannlicher and laid it on the table. This, then, was the kind of weapon with which the deed had been done.
"People who join those societies are apt to find themselves let in for a good deal more than they bargained for." "It was so, at all events so far as I am concerned," said Lord Ashiel, "I had, you may be sure, only the wildest idea of what serious and extremely unpleasant consequences my unreflecting action would entail.
"Still on the whole, after talking to young Lord Ashiel, I felt more disposed to believe that there might be some truth in the accusation that had been made than I had previously thought likely. But on that point I reserved my opinion till I should have had an opportunity of examining the scene of the tragedy for myself.
"I am afraid I can't help you without fuller knowledge," said Gimblet. "What do you think I can do?" "You can do this," said Lord Ashiel. He put his hand in his pocket and Gimblet heard a crackling of paper.
"Come along," said Lord Ashiel, as he strolled up to them with a bird he had been looking for, "we're going on now to the next drive," and they started off down the hillside, wading deep through the heather to the track. Juliet had been nearly a week at Inverashiel.
Gimblet sprang round the corner of the pedestal, and there, as he expected, cowering in the mouth of the disclosed cavity, and looking, in his fury of fear and mortification, for all the world like some trapped vermin, crouched Lord Ashiel, glaring at his liberators with a rage that was hardly sane. Beyond him, on the floor at the back, they could see the tin dispatch box standing open and empty.
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