I met him accidentally in Pall Mall one evening, and he told me so."
"You don't know the name of the restaurant?"
"He did tell me, but unfortunately I have forgotten."
The detective drew a deep breath of regret.
"Some one who waited for him on the edge of that wood stepped out and killed him — that's evident," he said.
"Without a doubt."
"And my belief is that it was an Italian. There were two foreigners who slept at a common lodging-house two nights ago and went on tramp towards Glasgow. We have telegraphed after them, and hope we shall find them. Scotsmen or Englishmen never use a knife of that pattern."
With his latter remark I entirely coincided. In my own mind that was the strangest argument in favour of Leithcourt's innocence. That the tenant of Rannoch had kept that secret tryst in daily patience I knew from my own observations, yet to me it scarcely seemed feasible that he would use a weapon so peculiarly Italian and yet so terribly deadly.
And then when I reflected further, recollecting that the body I had discovered was that of a woman and not a man, I stood staggered and bewildered by the utterly inexplicable enigma.
I promised the burly detective that in exchange for his secrecy regarding my statement, I would assist him in every manner possible in the solution of the problem.
