The inquiry into the death of the unidentified man in Rannoch Wood had been resumed, and a verdict returned of willful murder against some person unknown, while of the second crime the public had no knowledge, for the body was not discovered.
Time after time I searched the wood alone, on the pretense of shooting pigeon, but discovered nothing.

When not having sport on my uncle's property, I joined various parties in the neighborhood, not because Scotland at that time attracted me, but because I desired to watch events.
Chater, as soon as he recovered, left the hospital and went south--to London, I ascertained--leaving the police utterly in the dark and filled with suspicion of the fugitives from Rannoch.
I longed to know the whereabouts of Muriel, hoping to gain from her some information regarding their visitor who had so nearly escaped with his life.

That she was aware of the object of his visit was plain from the statements of the servants, all of whom had been left without either money or orders.
One day I called at the castle, the front entrance of which I found closed.

Gilrae, the owner, had come up from London, met his factor there, and discharged all the late tenant's servants, keeping on only three of his own who had been in service there for a number of years.
Ann Cameron, a housemaid, was one of these, and it was she whom I met when entering by the servants' hall.
On questioning her, I found her most willing to describe how she was in the corridor outside the young mistress's room when Mr.Leithcourt dashed along in breathless haste with the telegram in his hand.

She heard him cry: "Look at this! Read it, Muriel.