If they had taken me to the edge of a river, or if they had
flung me beneath a railway train, I should have been drowned or
mangled in the same spirit. I was the walking dead.
Well, those are my impressions.
What had actually happened had been this. I pieced it together
afterwards. You will remember I said that Edward Ashburnham
and the girl had gone off, that night, to a concert at the Casino and
that Leonora had asked Florence, almost immediately after their
departure, to follow them and to perform the office of chaperone.
Florence, you may also remember, was all in black, being the
mourning that she wore for a deceased cousin, Jean Hurlbird. It
was a very black night and the girl was dressed in cream-coloured
muslin, that must have glimmered under the tall trees of the dark
park like a phosphorescent fish in a cupboard. You couldn't have
had a better beacon.
And it appears that Edward Ashburnham led the girl not up the
straight all?e that leads to the Casino, but in under the dark trees
of the park. Edward Ashburnham told me all this in his final
outburst. I have told you that, upon that occasion, he became
deucedly vocal. I didn't pump him. I hadn't any motive.
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