In the morning sunlight its surface
glittered like a plane of burnished metal, but when the two men went
nearer and gazed at it from its edge, the water was black and
unfathomable to the eye.
"Goodish thirty feet o' water in that there!" surmised Pickard. "It's
none safe for childer to play about--theer's nowt to protect 'em. Next
time I see Mestur Shepherd I shall mak' it my business to tell him so;
he owt either to drain that watter off or put a fence around it."
"Is Mr. Shepherd the property-owner?" asked Byner.
"Aye!--it's all his, this land," answered Pickard. He pointed to a
low-roofed house set amidst elms and chestnuts, some distance off across
the moor. "Lives theer, does Mestur Shepherd--varry well-to-do man, he
is."
"How could that water be drained off?" asked Byner with assumed
carelessness.
"Easy enough!" replied Pickard. "Cut through yon ledge, and let it run
into t' far quarry there. A couple o' men 'ud do that job in a day."
Byner made no further remark. He and Pickard strolled back to the _Green
Man_ together. And declining the landlord's invitation to step inside
and take another glass, but promising to see him again very soon, the
inquiry agent walked on to the tram-car and rode down to Barford to keep
his appointment with Eldrick and Collingwood at the barrister's
chambers.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DIRECT CHARGE
While Byner was pursuing his investigations in the neighbourhood of the
_Green Man_, Collingwood was out at Normandale Grange, discussing
certain matters with Nesta Mallathorpe.
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