The Sussex Downs Murder Read Online Free PDF

far?”
    â€œBut we’ve no idea how badly he was hurt, Mrs. Rother. What makes you say that? I never mentioned the details of what we found to your husband.”
    â€œBut…but I’ve been reading the newspaper reports,” answered the girl, obviously ill at ease on being picked up on this point. “They mentioned the terrible blood-stains.”
    â€œExaggeration.”
    Meredith dismissed her fears with a shrug and took closer stock of Mrs. William Rother. He noticed that her natural prettiness was partially cancelled out by the drawn lines of her mouth and the dark smudges under her clear grey eyes. It was obvious that her husband was not the only one worrying about John Rother’s disappearance. She was younger than he had anticipated—twenty-five or -six perhaps, at least ten years younger than her husband. Her vivacity, he thought, was her greatest charm—a vivacity that sent shades of expression coursing through those clear grey eyes and lent to her youthful figure an air of delicate vigour.
    â€œFine-drawn,” was Meredith’s inward comment. “With a brain behind her good looks.”
    â€œCan you tell me,” he went on aloud, “which way I have to go to the kilns?”
    She came down to the gate and directed him.
    â€œLook—behind those bushes to the right. You can see the smoke rising.”
    Meredith touched his hat and set off on foot to where the great white belches of smoke were rising and thinning away down the wind. Clear of the bushes he came suddenly on the kilns.
    A wide sweep of downland lay in the distance beyond the natural wall into which the kilns had been sunk. An extensive though deep valley, divided by the unseen main road, dropped from the farm level and up again to the tree-crested hump of Highden Hill. To the right, only just glimpsed in the clumps of summer trees, huddled the tiled and thatched roofs of the village. On a higher level, its grey stone sombre against the blue sky, stood Washington Church, with the Vicarage crouching under the lee of its northern shadow. Directly below the kilns ran a continuation of the lane up which Meredith had driven, obviously linking up again with the main road. A low flint wall edged the thirty-foot sheer drop between the kiln-level and this lane, which at that point was bordered by stables on the far side and on the near side by a sort of yard where the lime was loaded on to the wagons. Standing below in this yard, watching a carter harnessing his horse, stood William Rother.
    Meredith leant over the little wall and let out a call.
    â€œExcuse me a moment, sir. Can you come up?”
    Rother looked up quickly, recognized the Superintendent, nodded, and started off up the lane on a détour which would eventually bring him on to the higher level. Arriving there he held out his hand. Meredith was shocked by the man’s appearance. In ten days his entire face had altered. From a thin, white mask, hollowed here and there as if by a sculptor’s chisel, burnt the dark, over-bright eyes of a man who is on the verge of a nervous collapse.
    â€œMy God, sir!” was Meredith’s involuntary exclamation. “You look ill.”
    â€œI am ill,” replied Rother in level tones, with expressionless eyes. “Do you wonder at it? Tell me”—he placed a thin, nervous hand on the Superintendent’s sleeve—“tell me—have you brought any news?”
    â€œI’m afraid not, Mr. Rother. I’m out here on another line of inquiry. Connected with your brother’s disappearance, I admit, but at the moment a private matter. You understand?”
    â€œPerfectly.” The voice sounded totally disinterested. “What exactly do you want to know?”
    â€œI want to know how you make lime?” said Meredith bluntly.
    Rother eyed the Superintendent suspiciously, as if uncertain whether he had heard aright.
    â€œBut what has that