Greenough and the Sheriff were on the ground when we got there, as well as a small knot of country folk, kept at a distance by a deputy or two, and already a small posse, hastily recruited, was beating the wood nearby. Such clues as there may have been, however, had been obliterated by the storm. There is no trace of the dreaded symbol in chalk.…
Halliday has reconstructed the story, in view of his own experience.
“The fellow was waiting,” he said, “and hailed her, as he hailed me. He knew nobody would pass a man caught out in a storm like that. He got in, and closed the storm curtains, and of course she hadn’t a chance in the world.”
He does not therefore agree with the general conviction, that we are dealing with a s****l crime. And that word “general” does not include all of the popu
