But what
arrested Fisher's eye was that in this bulk of gray-white stone
behind there was a single door with great, rusty bolts outside; the
bolts, however, were not shot across so as to secure it. Then he
walked round the small building, and found no other opening except
one small grating like a ventilator, high up in the wall. He
retraced his steps thoughtfully along the causeway to the banks of
the lake, and sat down on the stone steps between the two sculptured
funeral urns. Then he lit a cigarette and smoked it in ruminant
manner; eventually he took out a notebook and wrote down various
phrases, numbering and renumbering them till they stood in the
following order: "(1) Squire Hawker disliked his first wife. (2) He
married his second wife for her money. (3) Long Adam says the estate
is really his. (4) Long Adam hangs round the island temple, which
looks like a prison. (5) Squire Hawker was not poor when he gave up
the estate. (6) Verner was poor when he got the estate."
He gazed at these notes with a gravity which gradually turned to a
hard smile, threw away his cigarette, and resumed his search for a
short cut to the great house. He soon picked up the path which,
winding among clipped hedges and flower beds, brought him in front
of its long Palladian facade.
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