“I can’t think what’s happened,” he told Abel later, when the man had woken up. “He’s never done this before.” Then he thought of something. “When you stepped into the clearing, did you see him? Did you see which way he went?”
Abel shook his head. “I’m sorry. You were the only person I saw.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“Yes, I am. I saw you kneeling by the spring, washing your clothes and whistling. It was the whistling that led me to you.”
Lucien took a step back. An unsteady smile materialised on his face. “But I wasn’t whistling. Edgar was. He was doing it to entertain me while I was rinsing out the clothes.”
Abel’s expression became one of puzzlement. “I don’t know about your friend, Lucien, but I only saw you, and you were whistling.”
But how could that be?
Lucien shook his h
