Blick had not been prepared for this outburst of feeling, nor was he prepared for an equally sudden, wholly impulsive, similar display from the Professor.
“Look here, my man!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know me—never mind!—Blick here does. Now then, if you want a new start—another life, eh?—I’ll give you a hundred pounds in addition to this reward money—great pleasure, I’m sure—and just now! But—if you know anything—tell!”
Roper stared in amazement at the Professor, who nodded his head vigorously.
“Thank ’ee sir!” he said suddenly. “I see you means it—you’re a man with a bit o’ heart in you! Well, I don’t know nothing positive, but I can make a pretty good guess at—something!”
The Professor, leaning forward on his walking-cane, and the detective, watching the woodman with a sharp side-glance, alike felt that they were on the verge of a revelation. But Blick’s brain was busy with a queer, confused doubt. Roper talked of guesswork, and it was not guess-work that Blick wanted; he was wondering what Roper meant by guess-work. And yet—for all they knew, they might at that instant be within tangible distance of the much-wanted truth.
“Seems little enough when you come to tell of it, like—and I’m no great hand,” replied Roper. “But—this here! Last Monday night it was—night afore Guy Markenmore was found, beyond there, at Markenmore Hollow. That night, after I’d had my supper, I left my cottage to walk to Mitbourne—there was a man there as I wanted to see. I took up the hill-side, just behind Woodland Cottage, and struck into that grass-track that run a-top of the downs from thereabouts to near Mitbourne Station. And I might ha’ been about a mile or so along that when I hears men a-coming towards me——”
“What time was that, Roper?” interrupted Blick.
“It ’ud be about a quarter-past eight, and nicely dark. Now, I’d reasons o’ my own for not wanting to be seen going Mitbourne way, so when I hears they men a-coming along, I slips behind a big clump o’ gorse that was handy, and stands still. Bimeby, these two comes walking closer—I see ’em outlined against the grey o’ the sky over Selcaster way, d’ye see. One tall man—one shortish man. A few yards away, the tallish man pulls up and lights a cigar. I see his face in the light o’ the match. Then you might ha’ knocked me down with a feather, for ’twas the man I hadn’t never stopped thinking about for seven bitter years, and you may reckon who that was—Guy Markenmore! I see him so well—just for a minute—as I do see you; no mistaking of him, for there wasn’t as much alteration in his face, damn him! as what I do allow he’d ha’ seen in mine. There he was, and if it hadn’t been for t’other with him, I’d ha’ gone for him there and then. But—I didn’t! They come on, talking, they hadn’t never stopped talking since I first see ’em——”