No, said Pond softly, he saw the shape and could
not believe itbecause it was the shadow.
I gotengaged to Joan Varney this morning. I fancy I
could climb it myself, if it came to that. Paul Green didnot venture to advertise
for it in the papers. Rather interesting man, Marco Polo, said Captain Gahagan, in
avaguely conversational tone.
Unfortunately, he did something else; which he
could domuch more quickly. I think it was Marco Polo, theVenetian; anyhow, it was
one of those early mediæval travellers. I have not the wildest notion what you mean,
said the vicar ofHanging Burgess briskly.
Then, with agreat shock, I quite literally came to
myself.
And when Iheard a distant splash, I knew he had
thrown the corpse into theriver. But in this case, as a fact, he had plagiarized
from his oldacquaintance Dr.
Little did not mind who took chairs so longas he
took charge. To confess that I am not a dangerous man .
Paul Green didnot venture to advertise for it in
the papers.
I guessedthat when he first said, just afterwards,
that your own figure wasmuch more unmistakable. It happened last night, repeated
Gahagan. Pitt-Palmer, unaccountablytumbled down dead.
Ayres waslooking through some of his sketch-books;
and I left him at it whenI went out, just as Mr.
Pond,a shadow is most misleading when it is
precisely correct.
Even now, muttered the vicar, Im not so clear what
you mean bythat. I was quite pedantically correct, said Gahagan, waving his
hand,condescendingly. That was why I nearly got hanged; and why therewas a corpse in
the house behind me.
I was the new hypocrite; but mine was the homage
thatvirtue pays to vice.
But inthis case it was not disobeying its master.
Only aspecial assurance would have induced me to place my clients casebefore
it.
One could not say any worse of him than that.