CHAPTER XV

ANOTHER DISCOVERY

Kelson was in their sitting-room reading the Field.  He started up as Gifford entered, and flung away the paper.  “My dear Hugh, I’ve been waiting for you,” he exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?  Anything wrong?” Gifford asked with a certain apprehensive curiosity, as he noticed signs of suppressed excitement in his friend’s face.

“I don’t know whether it’s all wrong or whether it is all right,” Kelson replied.  “Anyhow it has relieved my mind a good deal.”

Controlling his own tendency to excitement, Gifford put aside his hat and stick and sat down.  “Let’s hear it,” he said quietly.

“Well, another unaccountable thing has, it appears, happened at Wynford Place.  A pendant, or whatever you call it, to that which has been troubling Muriel.  What do you think?  As I was riding along the Loxford road this afternoon I met Dick Morriston, and he told me that another discovery of blood-stains has been made at Wynford.  On a girl’s ball-dress too.  And on whose do you suppose it is?”

“Not Miss Morriston’s?” Gifford suggested breathlessly.

Kelson nodded, with a slight look of surprise at the correctness of the guess.  “Yes.  Isn’t it queer?  Poor old Dick is in rather a way about it, and I must say the whole business is decidedly mysterious.”

Gifford was thinking keenly.  “How did it come out?  Who found the marks?” he asked.

“Well,” Kelson answered, “it appears that Edith Morriston’s maid found them some days ago, in fact the day after a similar discovery had been made on Muriel’s gown.  She had brought the dress which her mistress had worn at the Hunt Ball out of the wardrobe where it hung, in order to fold it away.  She appears to have spread it on the bed where the sun shone on it and in the strong light she noticed on the dark material some brownish discolorations.  With what had happened about the other dress in her mind, she examined the marks closely, and with such intentness as to raise the curiosity of a housemaid who happened to come into the room.  At first Miss Morriston’s maid tried to put her off, but the other girl, who was sharp-eyed, had seen the marks, was not to be hood-winked, and the mischief was done.  The housemaid seems to be a foolish, babbling creature, and the discovery soon became the talk of the servants’ hall, whence it spread till it reached the police.”

“And what are they doing about it?” Gifford asked.

“Morriston says they’ve had a detective up at the house examining the gown; being so utterly at sea over the affair the police are doubtless glad to catch at anything.  There seems little question that the stains are blood, and that makes the whole business still more puzzling.  Dick Morriston is naturally very exercised about it, but I am very glad for Muriel’s sake that the second discovery has been made.  In fact I have been just waiting till I saw you before riding over to tell her of it, and relieve her mind.”