“Good-morning, Lady Angela.”

She galloped away.  Miss Moyat turned towards me eagerly.

“Why, Mr. Ducaine,” she exclaimed, “I had no idea that you knew Lady Angela.”

“Nor do I,” I answered shortly.  “Our acquaintance is of the slightest.”

“What did she mean about the lecture?”

I affected not to hear.  John the wagoner had pulled up his team by the side of the palings, and was touching his hat respectfully.

“Another job for the dead ’ouse, sir, my missis tells me.”

“There is the body of a dead man here, John,” I answered, “washed up by the tide, I suppose.  It isn’t an uncommon occurrence here, is it?”

“Lor bless you, no, sir,” the man answered, stepping over the palings.  “I had three of them here in one month last year.  If you’ll just give me a hand, sir, we’ll take him down to the police station.”

I set my teeth and advanced towards the dead man.  John Hefford proved at once that he was superior to all such trifles as nerves.  He lifted the body up and laid it for the first time flat upon the sands.

“My! he’s had a nasty smash on the head,” John remarked, looking down at him with simple curiosity.  “Quite the gent too, I should say.  Will you give me a hand, sir, and we’ll have him in the wagon.”

So I was forced to touch him after all.  Nevertheless I kept my eyes as far as possible from the ghastly face with the long hideous wound across it.  I saw now, however, in one swift unwilling glance, what manner of man this was.  He had thin features, a high forehead, deep-set eyes too close together, a thin iron-grey moustache.  Whatever his station in life may have been, he was not of the labouring classes, for his hands were soft and his nails well cared for.  We laid him in the bottom of the wagon, and covered him over with a couple of sacks.  John cracked the whip and strode along by the side of the horses.  Blanche Moyat and I followed behind.

She was unusually silent, and once or twice I caught her glancing curiously at me, as though she had something which it was in her mind to say, but needed encouragement.  As we neared my cottage she asked me a question.

“Why don’t you want me to say that I saw this man in the village last night, and that he asked for you, Mr. Ducaine?  I can’t understand what difference it makes.  He may have spoken to others besides me, and then it is bound to be known.  What harm can it do you?”

“I cannot explain how I feel about it,” I answered.  “I am not sure that I know myself.  Only you must see that if it were known that he set out from the village last night to call upon me, people might say unpleasant things.”

She lowered her voice.

“You mean—­that they might suspect you of killing him?”