He says--nothing."
Fisher looked at the young man steadily for a moment; then he
started from his immobility and, making a motion to March to follow
him, himself strode down to the river crossing. In a few moments
they were on the little beaten track that ran round the wooded
island, to the other side of it where the fisherman sat. Then they
stood and looked at him, without a word.
Sir Isaac Hook was still sitting propped up against the stump of the
tree, and that for the best of reasons. A length of his own
infallible fishing line was twisted and tightened twice round his
throat and then twice round the wooden prop behind him. The leading
investigator ran forward and touched the fisherman's hand, and it
was as cold as a fish.
"The sun has set," said Horne Fisher, in the same terrible tones,
"and he will never see it rise again."
Ten minutes afterward the five men, shaken by such a shock, were
again together in the garden, looking at one another with white but
watchful faces. The lawyer seemed the most alert of the group; he
was articulate if somewhat abrupt.
"We must leave the body as it is and telephone for the police," he
said. "I think my own authority will stretch to examining the
servants and the poor fellow's papers, to see if there is anything
that concerns them.
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