a thing as public opinion, sir, and—"
"And there's such a thing as blackmail, and there's such a thing as law," said Taffendale. "You're hinting at one, and you're bringing yourself within reach of the other. Who was with you last night?" he demanded, turning sharply on Justice.
"Nobody, sir, nobody!" replied the gamekeeper, taken unawares. "Nobody at all, Mr. Taffendale." Taffendale laughed.
"You're a fool!" he said. "Where're your witnesses? You come here, and threaten me with a cock-and-bull story, and all for what? To get money out of me. Mind I don't put the police on to you, my man!"
Justice suddenly realised that he was dealing with a cleverer man than himself; that he had been too confident, that he had been too hasty. His countenance betrayed his disappointment.
"I know what I saw," he muttered sulkily.
Taffendale laughed again, showing his white teeth, and the gamekeeper was suddenly reminded of an animal that bares its fangs when it comes to a life-anddeath fight. And as he laughed, he waved his hand in the direction of the village.
"Go down to the pot-house yonder in Martinsthorpe," said Taffendale severely, "and tell your cronies what's in your mind, and I'll have you in the hands of the police before a day's over. And now, then, get off my land!"
Justice stood for a moment looking uneasily at the man in whom he had thought to find an easy victim. Then he nodded his head, and turned off towards the path.
"All right, Mr. Taffendale," he said. "I see, sir! But there's more ways than one. And I don't think Badger's Hollow 'll see you and Mrs. Perris again."
Taffendale made no answer. He remained watching Justice until the gamekeeper had gone down the path and away towards the village. For half-an-hour longer he watched his men, and his eyes were dark and sombre with thought, and now and then he muttered his thoughts half-aloud. He was beginning to understand why Rhoda had felt some curious prevision of coming trouble.
He went slowly back to the farmstead as noon drew near, and just as he reached his garden gate he met the young labourer whom Perris had hired when he discharged Pippany Webster. He held out to Taffendale a cheap envelope, which bore plentiful impressions of his own fingers.
"T' missis hes sent this 'ere letter," he said bluntly. "And shoo said wo'd you please to read it as soon as it were 'livered?"
Chapter XIV
Taffendale took the cheap envelope from the lad without comment, and tearing it open, drew out a crumpled sheet of equally cheap notepaper, in the top left-hand corner of which a crude representation of a pansy was stamped. He remembered as he unfolded it that he had never seen Rhoda's handwriting; there was no surprise aroused in him when he saw that it resembled the caligraphy of a school-boy who has been taught nothing but formal and elementary penmanship. He stared at the two or three lines traced hurriedly across the front page.
"Will you please come here as soon as you can. I am afraid something is wrong."
Taffendale crushed the note in his hand, and turned to the lad, who was staring open-mouthed at the signs of well-to-do-ness which distinguished the lime-burner's house and garden.
"All right," he said curtly. "Tell Mrs. Perris I'll ride round presently—half-an-hour or so."
The messenger nodded his head, and set off by the path which led across the fields, and Taffendale went into the house. He was wondering what it was that had made Rhoda send for him; what she meant by her use of the term "wrong." Going to the sideboard in his parlour he poured out a glass of sherry, and sipped it slowly as he stood ruminating on the events of the morning. First Justice and his blackmailing demand; now this urgent message from Rhoda—it seemed strange, he thought, that they should come together. And yet there was, perhaps, nothing strange in it; there had always been a consciousness in Taffendale's mind that he and Perris's wife had been skating on thin ice which might at any moment crack beneath them. And all this, he said to himself with a grim smile, might be the first sign of the crack.
Taffendale's farm-men were crossing the fold to the dinner awaiting them in the kitchen, and he threw open the window and bade one of them saddle his horse. He himself never dined until two o'clock; he would have ample time to ride to Cherry-trees and back before his dinner-hour arrived, unless something unforeseen awaited him there. And again he fell to wondering why Rhoda had sent for him with such evidence of urgency.
There was nothing in the appearance of Cherry-trees, when Taffendale rode up to it a little while later, to show that anything unusual had happened. The lad who had been sent to fetch him was just turning in at the orchard gate as Taffendale came in sight of it; he had evidently taken his time as he traversed the footpath way. At the sound of the horse's ringing feet he glanced round before vanishing into the house. Rhoda came out at once, and on seeing her, Taffendale drew rein. She hurried down the orchard to meet him, stopping at the very place where Tibby Graddige had stood when she called him to render assistance to Pippany Webster. Taffendale saw at once that she was alarmed and uneasy; there was a sense of some unknown fear in her eyes, and she kept looking from him to the house.
"What is it?" he asked, drawing his horse along side the hedge and bending from the saddle. "What's the matter?"
Rhoda, as with an effort, concentrated her attention upon him.
"It's Perris," she said in a low voice. "He's—gone."
"Gone!" exclaimed Taffendale. "Gone?" Rhoda inclined her head and made no answer in words.
"You don't mean he's left home—run away?" asked Taffendale. "What is it you mean? Speak out!"
Rhoda nervously began breaking bits of twigs and leaves off the top of the low hedge behind which she stood. She looked at Taffendale as if she scarcely knew what to say.
"I'm—I'm frightened," she said at last. "There's something wrong, and I don't know what. He wasn't at home when I came in last night—he'd gone to town to sell that new wheat, you know. And—he never came home."
"Well, but that's not so extraordinary," said Taffendale. "There might be reasons."
Rhoda shook her head.
"No!" she said. "I know him. He'd have been home last night if—if there wasn't something wrong. But he didn't come—and there is."
The persistent harping upon this feature of the matter began to irritate Taffendale. He repressed an exclamation of impatience, and drew his horse closer to the hedge.
"But—what do you think is wrong?" he said. "You're thinking something, you know. What is it?"
Rhoda gazed full at him for a moment, and made no answer.
"Come, now!" he said insistently.
But she only shook her head again and continued to stare at him. Suddenly she broke into more voluble speech.
"And he never came back this morning," she said, "and then, just before noon, a man came with a wagon and horses, and said that Perris had sold the wheat yesterday to Mr. Mawson, and that he'd come to fetch it—he'd a written order for its delivery, had the man, signed by Perris, and he said he'd seen his master pay Perris for it. There were seventy quarters, and they agreed
