CHAPTER 9Frank Abbott’s search of the Forester’s House disclosed no corpse. He came away with the certainty that Mary Stokes had fled from the place in terror, but with no further evidence as to what had caused such a headlong flight. A second certainty was that someone had been using the house—someone who had taken the trouble to rehang a door, make a room roughly habitable, and secure privacy by completely blocking the window. Without actual proof, it was impossible not to put two and two together or to resist the conclusion that Mary Stokes had a lover, and that she had been meeting him at the Forester’s House. So far so good. But there is nothing criminal about a meeting of illicit lovers. However morally undesirable such a situation may be, it is not one with which a detective sergean
