Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers Page B

there in her dressing-gown her hands clutched together on her breast. Her blue eyes were dilated till they looked almost black, and her skin seemed nearly the colour of her ash-blonde hair. Wimsey stared at her over the sheet he held in his arms and the terror in her face passed over into his, stamping them suddenly with the mysterious likeness of blood-relationship.
    Peter's own impression was that he stared "like a stuck pig" for about a minute. He knew, as a matter of fact, that he had recovered himself in a fraction of a second. He dropped the sheet into the chest and stood up.
    "Hullo, Polly, old thing," he said, "where've you been hidin' all this time? First time I've seen you. 'Fraid you've been havin' a pretty thin time of it."
    He put his arm round her, and felt her shrink.
    "What's the matter?" he demanded. "What's up, old girl? Look here, Mary, we've never seen enough of each other, but I am your brother. Are you in trouble? Can't I-"
    "Trouble?" she said. "Why, you silly old Peter, of course I'm in trouble. Don't you know they've killed my man and put my brother in prison? Isn't that enough to be in trouble about?" She laughed, and Peter suddenly thought, "She's talking like somebody in a blood-and-thunder novel." She went on more naturally. "It's all right, Peter, truly-only my head's so bad. I really don't know what I'm doing. What are you after? You made such a noise, I came out. I thought it was a door banging."
    "You'd better toddle back to bed," said Lord Peter. "You're gettin' all cold. Why do girls wear such mimsy little pyjimjams in this damn cold climate? There don't you worry. I'll drop in on you later and we'll have a jolly old pow-wow, what?"
    "Not to-day-not to-day, Peter. I'm going mad, I think." ("Sensation fiction again," thought Peter.)
    "Are they trying Gerald to-day?"
    "Not exactly trying," said Peter, urging her gently along to her room. "It's just formal, y'know. The jolly old magistrate bird hears the charge read, and then old Murbles pops up and says please he wants only formal evidence given as he has to instruct counsel. That's Biggy, y'know. Then they hear the evidence of arrest, and Murbles says old Gerald reserves his defence. That's all till the Assizes-evidence before the Grand Jury-a lot of bosh! That'll be early next month, I suppose. You'll have to buck up and be fit by then."
    Mary shuddered.
    "No-no! Couldn't I get out of it? I couldn't go through it all again. I should be sick. I'm feeling awful. No, don't come in. I don't want you. Ring the bell for Ellen. No, let go; go away! I don't want you, Peter!"
    Peter hesitated, a little alarmed.
    "Much better not, my lord, if you'll excuse me," said Burner's voice at his ear. "Only produce hysterics," he added, as he drew his master gently from the door. "Very distressing for both parties, and altogether unproductive of results. Better to wait for the return of her grace, the Dowager."
    "Quite right," said Peter. He turned back to pick up his paraphernalia, but was dexterously forestalled as once again he lifted the lid of the chest and looked in.
    "What did you say you found on that skin Bunter?"
    "Gravel, my lord, and silver sand."
    "Silver sand."
     
***
     
    Behind Riddlesdale Lodge the moor stretched starkly away and upward. The heather was brown and wet and the little streams had no colour in them. It was six o'clock, but there was no sunset. Only a paleness had moved behind the thick sky from east to west all day. Lord Peter, tramping back after a long and fruitless search for tidings of the man with the motorcycle, voiced the dull suffering of his gregarious spirit. "I wish old Parker was here," he muttered, and squelched down a sheep-track.
    He was making, not directly for the Lodge, but for a farmhouse about two and a half miles distant from it, known as Grider's Hole. It lay almost due north of Riddlesdale village, a lonely outpost on the edge of the moor, in a valley of fertile land between two wide swells of heather. The