They came down the hill,
passing close under the Vicarage wall and turning where it turned
to skirt the little lane at the bottom between the garden and the
churchyard. The lane led to the pastures, and the pastures to the
Manor. And from the Manor grounds a field track trailed to a small
wicket gate on the north side of the churchyard wall. A flagged path
went from the wicket to the door of the north transept. It was a short
cut for the lord of the Manor to his seat in the chancel, but it was
not the nearest way for anybody approaching the church from the high
road.
Now, the slope of the Vicarage garden followed the slope of the road
in such wise that a person entering the churchyard from the high road
could be seen from the windows of the Vicarage. If that person desired
to remain unseen his only chance was to go round by the lane to the
wicket gate, keeping close under the garden wall.
Rowcliffe heard the wicket gate click softly as it was softly opened
and shut.
And he could have sworn that Alice heard it too.
* * * * *
He waited twenty minutes or so in his surgery. Then, instead of
sending at once to the Red Lion for his trap, he walked back to the
church.
Standing in the churchyard, he could hear the sound of the organ and
of a man's voice singing.
He opened the big west door softly and went softly in.
XLII
There is no rood-screen in Garth church.
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