Caldew, who was the only person in the room with the deeper knowledge to divine the drift of these questions, realized with something of a shock that Merrington, with fewer facts to guide him, had reached his absolute conclusion about the events of the last half-hour while he had wandered perplexedly in a cloud of suspicions. The mental jump had been too great for him, but Merrington had not hesitated to take it. Caldew waited eagerly for the next question. It was some time in coming, and when it did come it was not what Caldew expected. As though satisfied with the previous answers he had received, Merrington branched off on another track.
"How did you spend last night?" he asked abruptly.
"I do not understand you." There was the shadow of fear in the girl's dark eyes as she answered.
"I will put it more plainly then. How did you occupy the time between your arrival at the moat-house and bedtime?"
"I spent it with my mother in her rooms."
"Were you there all the time?"
It seemed to Caldew that the elder woman's attitude was that of a listener. Though she still kept her face buried in her hands, her frame slightly moved, as though she were listening to catch the reply.
"Yes." The word was spoken hurriedly, almost defiantly, but the girl's eyes wavered and fell under Merrington's direct glance.
"May I take it, then, that you were in your mother's room at the time Mrs. Heredith was murdered?"
This time Hazel did not reply audibly, but a faint movement of her head indicated an affirmative.
"What would you say if your mother admits that you left her room before the murder was committed, and that she did not see you until afterwards?"
It was a clever trap, Caldew reluctantly conceded, this idea of playing off the mother and daughter against each other, but one that he would have hesitated to use. The effect was instantaneous. Before the girl could frame her frightened lips in reply, her mother lifted her head sharply.
"I didn't say so! Don't answer him, Hazel, don't tell him. Oh!" Too late the wretched woman realized that she had betrayed her daughter, and she sank into a stupefied silence.
"Your mother has let the cat out of the bag," said Merrington to the girl, in a bantering tone. "Come, now," he added, changing swiftly into his most truculent mood. "We may as well have the truth, first as last. You were seen last night going up the hall in the direction of the left wing just before the murder was committed. Do you admit it?"
"I do." The admission was made in a low but calm tone.
"Then your last answer was untrue. What were you doing in the hall at that time?"
Hazel, staring straight in front of her, did not reply, but her quickly moving breast betrayed her agitation.
"Did you hear me? I asked what were you doing in the hall last night."
"I shall not tell you."
"Did you go upstairs?"
"I shall not tell you."
These replies were given with a firm readiness which was in striking contrast to her previous hesitation. She was like a person who had been forced on to a dangerous path she feared to tread, and had summoned fortitude to walk it bravely to the end.
"Of course you realize the position in which you place yourself by your silence?" The quiet gravity with which Merrington put this question was, similarly, in the strangest contrast to his former hectoring style. "It is my duty to warn you that you are placing yourself in a grave situation. Once more, will you answer my questions?"
"I will not." The answer was accompanied by a gesture which contained something of the carelessness of despair.
"Then you must abide the consequences." He turned to Captain Stanhill and Caldew. "It will be necessary to search the housekeeper's rooms. Lumbe, you remain here and take charge of these two women. Do not allow either of them to leave the room on any pretext. You had better keep the door locked until we return."
He strode out of the room followed by Captain Stanhill and Caldew, to the manifest trepidation of two maidservants outside, who had plainly no business there. It was apparent that Milly Saker had been talking, and that strange rumours were agitating the moat-house underworld.
"Where are the housekeeper's rooms?" said Merrington, abruptly accosting one of the fluttered girls. "Come now, don't stand gaping at me like a fool, but take us there directly."
The terrified girl went quickly ahead along a corridor leading from the main hall. Turning down a narrower passage near the end she paused outside a closed door and said:
"This is the housekeeper's room, sir."
"Stop a minute," said Merrington. "Does the housekeeper occupy only one room?"
"No, sir, there are two. A sitting-room, with a bedroom opening off it."
"She has no other room in any other part of the house?"
"Oh, no, sir."
"That will do. You may go."
The maid needed no second bidding, but scuttled back towards the corridor like a scared hen making for cover. Merrington flung open the door in front of him and entered.
The room was well and simply furnished in the style of the house, but the personal belongings and the bindings of some books suggested a mind not out of harmony with the refinement of its surroundings. Merrington, with a swift and comprehensive glance around him, began to upset the neat arrangement and feminine order of the apartment with a thorough and systematic search.
Caldew watched him for a moment, and then walked across to the door of the inner room and entered it. The bedroom was large and airy, and the appointments struck the note of dainty simplicity. Caldew was quick to notice a girl's hat, with a veil attached, cast carelessly on the toilet-table.
He made a circuit round the bed and approached the table to look at the hat. A tight knot and a slight tear in the gossamer indicated that it had been discarded very hastily, and Caldew wondered whether Hazel had it on, waiting for an opportunity to slip away from the moat-house, when he had knocked at the door to summon her to the library.
As he put the hat down his eye fell on a pincushion by the mirror, and he gave a start of surprise. In the midst of hatpins at various angles he saw the little brooch which had disappeared from the death-chamber. The stone with the greenish reflection shone clearly against the blue and gold shot-silk of the pincushion; the portion of the clasp which was visible revealed the beginning of the scratched inscription of "Semper Fidelis." The absence of any attempt to conceal the brooch was proof that its owner was under the delusion that nobody had seen it lying in the death-chamber. Caldew felt a thrill of professional vanity at the success of his ruse.
His own name uttered in a peremptory shout from the next room caused him to pick up the brooch and hasten thither. The first sight that met his eye was the flushed triumphant face of Merrington bending over some articles on the table. Caldew's view of the objects was obscured by Captain Stanhill, who was also examining them, but he guessed by the attitude of both men that a valuable find had been made. He advanced eagerly to the table and saw, lying between them, a small revolver and a handkerchief. The white cambric of the handkerchief was stained crimson with blood.
The room was in great disorder. Superintendent Merrington, in the impetuosity of his search, had reduced the previous order to chaos in the course of a few minutes. Drawers had been opened and their contents strewn about the floor, rugs and cushions had been flung into a corner of the room, and the doors of a cabinet had been forced. Even the pictures on the wall had been disarranged, and some of the chairs were knocked over.
"Where did you find these things?" asked Caldew, picking up the revolver and examining it.
"In that gimcrack thing over there." Merrington pointed to a slight, elegant writing-table standing in a corner of the room. "Isn't it a typical female hiding-place? About as safe as burying your head in the sand. The drawer had been locked and the key taken away, but it was quite easy to open. The lock is a trumpery kind of thing, with the bolt shooting into the soft wood."
"I see that the revolver is still loaded in five chambers," said Caldew, as he put down the weapon.
"Yes, and the sixth has been recently discharged. We don't require much clearer evidence than that. And look at this handkerchief. The blood on it is hardly dry yet."
Caldew took the handkerchief in his hand. As Merrington remarked, the blood on it was hardly dry. It was a small linen square, destitute of feminine adornment except for a dainty "H R" worked in silk in one corner. The letters were barely visible in the blood with which the whole handkerchief was saturated.
"I wonder how she got the blood on the handkerchief?" said Caldew. "Did she try to stop the bleeding after shooting Mrs. Heredith?"
"It would be just like a woman to do so," grunted Merrington. "Women are fond of crying over spilt milk—especially when they have spilt it themselves. However, that's neither here nor there. The point is that this is the girl's handkerchief, and this is the revolver with which she shot Mrs. Heredith."
"But what was her motive for committing such an atrocious crime?" asked Captain Stanhill in bewilderment.
"Jealousy," responded Merrington promptly. "I saw the possibility of that motive as soon as I heard Milly Saker's story, and learnt that Hazel Rath had lived for some years in the moat-house. Young Heredith and she must have been thrown together a lot before the war, and there was doubtless a flirtation between them which probably developed into an intrigue. There are all the materials at hand for it—a well-born idle young man, a girl educated above her station, a lonely country-house, and plenty of opportunity. I know the type of girl well. These half-educated protégées of great ladies grow up with all the whims and caprices of fine females, and their silly little heads are easily turned. Probably this girl imagined that young Heredith was so captivated by her pretty face that he would marry her. When she learnt that she had been dropped for somebody else she brooded in secret until her unbalanced nature led her to commit this terrible crime. Moreover, she is the daughter of a woman with a queer past, who has been living under an assumed name for the past fifteen years."
"Do you think mother and daughter have acted in collusion in this murder?" Caldew asked.
"That is a question I would not care to answer offhand," responded Merrington thoughtfully. "Undoubtedly the mother shielded the daughter and lied to save her, and she obviously knew that the girl was absent from her room at the time the murder was committed. How far this implies guilty knowledge, or the acts of an accomplice, we are not yet in a position to say. We will arrest the daughter, and detain the mother—for the present, at all events. Whether we charge the mother as well as the daughter will depend on our subsequent investigations. It will be no novelty for the mother to be charged as accessory in a murder case," concluded Merrington, with a grim smile.
"We have no direct evidence that the girl went upstairs last night," said Caldew, with a reflective air. "Milly Saker did not see her going upstairs, and apparently nobody saw her coming away."
"No direct evidence, it is true. But the presumptive evidence is so strong that it is hardly needed. In the first place, Milly Saker saw her going down the hall in the direction of the left wing just before the murder was committed. Next day—this morning—the housekeeper sent Milly Saker out of the way before she could be questioned by the police. That act suggests two inferences. First, Mrs. Rath, as she calls herself, had some inkling that Milly Saker saw her daughter in the hall on the previous night, and secondly, that Mrs. Rath feared, in the light of subsequent events, to let it be known that her daughter was seen walking down the hall before the murder was committed. From these inferences we may conclude that, even if the mother had no actual knowledge of the crime, she believed that her daughter was guilty. Her subsequent actions to-day confirm that theory in every respect. And, of course, the recovery of this revolver and the girl's handkerchief in her mother's rooms, where she slept last night, is the strongest possible proof that the girl shot Mrs. Heredith."
"Of course there can be no doubt of that. It would be impossible to find a stronger case of circumstantial evidence," said Caldew earnestly. "But here is a piece of direct evidence. Look here!" He produced the little brooch from his pocket and placed it on the table beside the revolver and the handkerchief. "This is the brooch I told you about. It is the brooch I saw in Mrs. Heredith's room which disappeared while I was downstairs. I found it stuck in a pincushion in the next room, beside the girl's hat. She must have realized that she dropped it in the murdered woman's bedroom, and seized the opportunity to return for it while I was out of the room. That is a piece of direct evidence that she was in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom."
"So you were right about the brooch. I owe you an apology for that, Caldew," said Merrington. He placed the little trinket in his big hand, and turned it over with his finger. The inscription on the back caught his eye, and he held it closer to read it. "Semper Fidelis!" he exclaimed. "The words are typical of the girl. The wishy-washy sentiment would appeal to her, and she's of that partly educated type which thinks a Latin tag imposing. I wonder who gave it to her? Oh, I have it! It was probably a gift from young Heredith, and she added the inscription on her own account so as to enhance the value of the gift and keep her 'Faithful Always.'"
Once more Caldew reluctantly admitted to himself that Merrington's deductions were more swift and vigorous than his own, but he was secretly annoyed to think that the other had gained partly by guesswork the solution of a clue which had caused him so much thought and perplexity.
"The brooch is no more direct evidence than the revolver and handkerchief," continued Merrington. "The girl, unless she is a born fool, is not likely to admit ownership of any one of them. She would be putting the rope round her own neck to do so."
"I realize that," replied Caldew. "But I think that she might be trapped into giving away that she owns the brooch. Women are very impulsive where the loss of ornaments is concerned, and then their actions are instinctive. I have frequently noticed it."
"And how do you propose to find out?" asked Merrington.
"By asking her."
"You'll get nothing out of this girl for the asking," replied Merrington. "She runs deeper than that, or I am very much mistaken. However, ask your own questions, by all means, after I have questioned her about the revolver and the handkerchief. Let us get back to the library."
They returned to the library. Sergeant Lumbe opened the door in response to their knock, his face furrowed with the responsibilities of office. Mother and daughter were sitting where they had left them, but the elder woman had regained some measure of composure, and was staring drearily in front of her. She did not look at the police officials as they entered, but Hazel glanced towards them, and her eyes fell on the revolver and handkerchief which Merrington carried in his hand. It seemed to Caldew that her face remained unmoved. Merrington walked over to her.
"You must consider yourself under arrest on a charge of murdering Mrs. Heredith," he said, in quiet, almost conversational tones. "This revolver and this handkerchief were found in your mother's sitting-room. If you have any explanation to make you may do so, but it is my duty to warn you that any statement you make now may be used in evidence against you later on."
"I have nothing to say," replied the girl simply.
"You decline to say how this revolver came into your possession, or make any explanation about the bloodstains on this handkerchief?"
"Yes."
"Do you also refuse to tell us what you have done with the brooch you were wearing last night?" added Caldew.
The girl, with an impulsive instinctive gesture, hastily put her hand to the neck of her blouse, then, realizing that she had unconsciously betrayed herself, she let it fall slowly to her side.
The popular fallacy which likens circumstantial evidence to a chain naturally found no acceptance in the mind of Superintendent Merrington. If a link in a chain snaps, the captive springs free, but if he is bound by a rope it is necessary for all the strands to be severed before liberty can be regained.
Merrington remained at Heredith to weave additional strands for the rope of circumstantial evidence by which Hazel Rath was held for the murder of Violet Heredith. It was a good strong case as it stood, but Merrington had seen too many strong ropes nibbled through by sharp legal teeth to leave anything to chance. If the circumstances against Hazel Rath remained open to an alternative explanation—if, for example, the defence suggested that the mother was implicated in the crime and the daughter was silent in order to shield her, it might be difficult to obtain a conviction. Merrington knew by wide experience how alternative theories weakened the case of circumstantial evidence, no matter how strong the presumption from the known facts appeared to be.
A useful strand in circumstantial evidence is motive, and it was motive that Merrington sought to prove against Hazel Rath. His own inference about the crime, swiftly and boldly reached shortly before he arrested her, was that the girl was in love with Phil Heredith, and had murdered his young wife through jealousy. Hazel's silence in the face of accusation supported that theory, in his opinion. She was ashamed to confess, not the crime, but the hopeless love which had inspired it. Women were like that, Merrington reflected. A woman who dared to commit murder would blush to admit, even to herself, that she had given her love to a man who was out of her reach. But it is one thing to hold a theory, and another thing to prove it in the eyes of the law. As Hazel Rath was not likely to help the Crown establish motive by confessing her love for Philip Heredith, it was left to Superintendent Merrington to establish his theory, by all the independent facts and inferences he was able to bring to light.
This proved more difficult than he anticipated. He had visualized the situation with excellent insight up to a certain point, and he had imagined that it would not be a difficult matter to obtain proofs of the existence of an early flirtation or intrigue between Phil Heredith and the pretty girl who had occupied an anomalous position in the moat-house. But a further examination of the inmates of the household failed to furnish any proofs in support of that supposition. Merrington could readily understand Miss Heredith and her brother denying such a suggestion; but the fact that none of the servants had seen anything of the kind was fairly convincing proof that no such relation existed.
No class have a keener instinct for scandal than the servants of a country-house. They have opportunities of seeing hidden things which nobody else is likely to suspect. And the moat-house servants asserted, with complete unanimity, that there had been nothing between Phil Heredith and Hazel Rath during the time the girl had lived at the moat-house. Their relations had been friendly, but nothing more. There was no record of secret looks, stolen kisses, or surprised meetings to support the theory of a mutual flirtation or furtive love. It was impossible to doubt that Phil Heredith's attitude to the girl who had occupied a dependent position in his home had been actuated by no warmer feeling than a sort of brotherly regard.
Merrington, versed by long experience in forming an estimate of character from second-hand opinion, was forced to the conclusion that Phil Heredith was not the type of young man to betray the innocence or trifle with the feelings of a young and unsophisticated girl. The servants' testimony revealed him as gentle and courteous, but shy and reserved, not fond of company, and immersed in his natural history pursuits.
Merrington, however, had less difficulty in proving to his own satisfaction that Hazel Rath had been secretly in love with Phil Heredith almost since the days of her childhood. There was, to begin with, the greenstone brooch which Caldew had picked tap in the bedroom after Mrs. Heredith had been murdered. The members of the household were in the custom of making the girl little presents on her birthday anniversary, and Phil had given her the piece of greenstone, set in a brooch, on her birthday six years before. There was no secret about it; the gift had been chosen on the suggestion of Miss Heredith, who told Merrington the facts. What was unknown was the addition of the inscription, "Semper Fidelis," which must have been scratched on the brooch subsequently by the girl herself as a girlish vow of love and fidelity of the giver.
Detective Caldew might have ascertained these facts and shortened the police investigations by the simple process of asking Miss Heredith about the brooch in the first instance. But it is easy to be wise after the event, and Superintendent Merrington was the last man to quarrel with his subordinate for excess of caution in the initial stage of the investigations, when it was his duty to doubt everybody and confide in nobody. Moreover, Merrington could not forget that he himself had completely underestimated the importance of that clue when Caldew had drawn his attention to it.
A search of Hazel's bedroom at Stading brought to light additional testimony of the love which was likely to destroy her. Merrington and Caldew, ruthlessly turning over the feminine appointments of this dainty little nest, had unearthed from the bottom of the girl's box a square parcel tied with ribbon. The packet contained letters and postcards from Phil, principally picture postcards from different Continental places he had visited after leaving Cambridge. There were three letters: two schoolboy epistles, asking the girl to look after the pets he had left at home, and one short note from the University announcing the dispatch of a volume of poems as a birthday gift. There was also a Christmas card, dated some years before, inscribed, "To dear Phil, with love, from Hazel." The girl had kept it, perhaps, because she was too shy to bestow it on the intended recipient, but its chief value in Merrington's eyes was the similarity between the written capital F and the same letter in the scratched inscription on the greenstone brooch.
With these discoveries Merrington was satisfied. In Hazel Rath's secret love for Phil Heredith the Crown was supplied with the motive for the murder of Phil Heredith's wife. In Merrington's opinion, the supposition of motive was strengthened by the fact that the murder was committed during Hazel's first visit to the moat-house since the arrival of the young bride, because until Phil's marriage it had been the girl's custom to visit the moat-house once a week. Miss Heredith informed Merrington that she had questioned the girl on the afternoon of the murder about the sudden cessation of her visits, and Hazel had replied rather evasively. Merrington formed the opinion that she had stayed away because she could not bear to see the woman whom Phil had made his wife. Then, realizing that her prolonged absence was likely to be remarked upon, she went across on the day of the murder to see her mother. Merrington did not think that the murder was premeditated. His belief was that when the girl found herself back in the surroundings where she had spent such a happy girlhood in association with Phil Heredith, she was seized with a mad fit of jealousy against her successful rival, and under its influence had rushed upstairs and murdered her. Merrington had also come to the conclusion that her mother knew nothing about the crime until afterwards, and then she had endeavoured to shield her daughter by lying to the police and sending Milly Saker out of the way.
Merrington was unable to account for Hazel's possession of the revolver with which Mrs. Heredith had been killed. The girl maintained her stubborn silence after her arrest, and refused to answer any questions about the weapon or anything connected with the crime. The police assumption was that she had obtained the revolver from the gun-room of the moat-house shortly before the murder was committed. The gun-room was underground. It had originally been the crypt of the Saxon castle which had once stood on the site where the moat-house was built, and was entered by a short flight of steps not far from the passage which led to the housekeeper's rooms. It was rectangular in shape, and, like the majority of gun-rooms in old English country mansions, contained a large assortment of ancient and modern weapons.
Neither Sir Philip Heredith nor Miss Heredith was able to state whether the revolver found in the housekeeper's room belonged to the moat-house or was the property of one of the guests, and Phil Heredith was too ill to be asked. As expert evidence at the inquest definitely determined that the bullet extracted from the murdered woman had been fired from the revolver, Merrington did not attach very much importance to the question of ownership, but before his departure for London he arranged that Caldew should return to the moat-house later with the revolver for Phil's inspection, in the hope of settling the point before the trial.
Miss Heredith had undertaken to let the detectives know when her nephew was well enough to be seen, but as time went on she doubted whether he would ever recover. Although the delirium which had followed his seizure had passed away, he was slow in regaining health, and remained in bed, listless and indifferent to everything, sometimes reading a little, but oftener lying still, staring at the wall. He was passive and quiet, and obedient as a child. He seemed to have no recollection of the events of the night of the murder, and his aunt did not dare to recall them to his mind.
It was for Phil's sake, and for him only, that she was able to preserve her own courage and calmness through the sordid ordeal of the lengthy inquest and the empty pomp of the funeral of the young wife. Her own heart was bruised and numb within her with the horrors which had been heaped upon her. She was like one who had seen a pit open suddenly at her feet, revealing terrible human obscenities and abominations wallowing nakedly in the depths. It was a poignant shock to her that human nature was capable of such infamy. Her startled virgin eyes saw for the first time in the monstrous passion of sex a force which was stronger than her own most cherished beliefs. If a sweet and gentle girl like Hazel Rath, who had been brought up under her own eye to walk uprightly, could be swept away in the surge of tempestuous passion to commit murder, where did Faith and Religion stand?
Almost as much as the effect of the murder did she fear the result of this second revelation on her nephew. The knowledge that the person accused of killing his wife was a girl who had lived in his own home for years was bound to have an additionally injurious effect on his strange and sensitive temperament. Nobody knew that temperament better than Miss Heredith. It was not the Heredith temperament. It had been the heritage of his mother, a strange, elfin, wayward creature, who had died bringing Phil into the world. Like all sisters, Miss Heredith had wondered what her brother had seen in his wife to marry her. Phil had all along been a disappointment to his father. He had come into the world with a lame foot and a frail frame, and the Herediths had always been noted for masculine strength and grace. Instead of growing up with a scorn for books and an absorbing love of sport, like a true Heredith, Phil had early revealed symptoms of a bookish, studious disposition, reserved and shy, with little liking for other boys or boyish games. His one hobby was an interest in natural history. He devoted his pocket money to the purchase of strange pets, which he kept in cages while they lived and stuffed when they died.
Miss Heredith had disapproved of this hobby, but had suffered it in silence, on the principle that a Heredith could do no wrong, until one winter's morning she had been frightened into her first and only fit of hysterics by discovering a large spotted snake coiled snugly on some flannel garments she was making for the wife of the curate, in anticipation of that unfortunate lady's fifth lying-in. Investigation brought to light the fact that the snake had been surreptitiously purchased by Master Phil from a Covent Garden dealer. He had kept it in a box in the stables, but, finding it torpid with cold one night, he had put it in his aunt's work-basket for the sake of the warmth. When Miss Heredith recovered from her hysterics she had seen to it that Phil was packed off to school almost as quickly as the snake was packed off to the Zoological Gardens.
After Phil's college days his father's influence had obtained for him a Government post which was to be the forerunnner of a diplomatic career, if Phil cared for it. That was before the war, which upset so many plans. In his capacity of assistant departmental secretary, Phil had nothing particular to do, and an ample allowance from his father to spend in his leisure time. Many young men in these circumstances—thrown on their own resources in London with plenty of money to spend—would have lost no time in "going wrong," but Phil's temperament preserved him from those temptations which so many young well-born men find irresistible. He had a disdain for the stage, he did not care for chorus girls, he disliked horse-racing, and he did not drink.
He sought distractions in another way, and rumours of those distractions filtered in due course down to his family home in Sussex. It was whispered that Phil was "queer"—that his old passion for petting reptiles and lower animal forms had merely been diverted into another channel. He had become a Socialist, and had been seen consorting with the lower orders at East End meetings with other people sufficiently respectable to have known better. It was even stated that he had supported an Irish revolutionary countess (who had discovered the first Socialist in Jesus Christ, and wanted to disestablish the Church of England) by "taking the chair" for her when she announced these tenets to the rabble in Hyde Park one fine Sunday afternoon. A Heredith a socialist and nonconformist! These were bitter blows to Miss Heredith, a woman soaked in family and Church tradition, but she bore the shock with uncompromising front, and was able to make the shortcomings of Phil's mother a vicarious sacrifice for the misdeeds of the son.
But the bitterest blow to Miss Heredith's family pride was the news of Phil's marriage. Till then she had pinned her faith, like a wise woman, in the reformative influence of a good marriage. Although a spinster herself, she was aware that there was no better method of reducing the showy nettlesome paces of youth to the sober jog-trot of middle-age than the restraining influence of the right kind of yokefellow. The qualities Phil most needed in a wife were those possessed by a sober-minded, unimaginative, placid girl of conventional mould. Such maidens are not unknown in rural England, and Miss Heredith had not much difficulty in picking upon one in the county sufficiently well-born to mate with the Herediths. Miss Heredith perfected her plan in detail, and had even gone to the length of drafting the letter which was to bring Phil down from London to be matrimonially snared, when the news came that he had snared himself in London without his aunt's assistance.
She did not like his wife from the first, and it was equally certain that Phil's wife did not like her. It was a marvellous thing to Miss Heredith that a shallow worldly girl like Violet should have captured the heart of a young man like her nephew so completely as to cause him to alter his ways of life for her. Phil loved Nature, and books, and solitary ways; his wife detested such things. Phil, in his eagerness to please her, and banish her apparent boredom with country life, had suggested asking some people from London with whom, at one time, he would have had very little in common. Perhaps his London life had changed him, but if so, it was a change for the worse for a young man, and a Heredith, to be so much under the thumb of his wife as to give up his own habits of life at her behest. But Phil was so much in love that he had done so, cheerfully and willingly. Violet's lightest wish was his law.
These thoughts, and others like them, passed and repassed through Miss Heredith's mind as she sat, day after day, in her nephew's sick room. It was her custom to take her needlework there of an afternoon, and relieve the nurse for two or three hours. But her sewing frequently lay idle in her lap, and she leaned back in her chair, absorbed in thought, glancing from time to time at Phil's worn face on the pillow, where he lay like one exhausted and weary, reluctant to return to the turmoil of life. He took his food and medicine with the docility of a child, and occasionally smiled at his aunt when she ministered to him. Gradually he mended and increased in bodily strength until he was able to sit up, and smoke an occasional cigarette. Sometimes he talked a little with his aunt, but always on indifferent subjects. He never asked about his wife, or spoke of the murder, as he had done in his delirium. It was apparent to those about him that his recollection of the events which had brought about his illness had not yet returned. Nature had, for the time being, soothed his stricken brain with temporary oblivion.
Then one day the change that Miss Heredith anticipated and feared came on him as swiftly as a dream. She entered the room to find him up and dressed, walking up and down with a quick and hurried stride. One glance from his quick dark eyes conveyed to her that his wandering senses had recrossed the border-line of consciousness, and entered into the horror and agony of remembrance.
"Phil, dear," she said, hastening to his side, "is this wise?"
"How long have I been lying here?" he demanded impatiently, as though he had not heard her speak.
"It is ten days since you were taken ill," she replied, in a low voice.
"Ten days!" he repeated in a stupefied tone, as though unable to realize the import of the lapse of time. "It is incredible! It seems to me as though it was only a few hours. What has happened? What has been done by the police? Has the murderer been arrested?"
It came to Miss Heredith with a shock that his dormant brain had awakened to leap back to the thing which had paralysed it, and with that knowledge came the realization that the dreaded moment for the revelation she had to make had arrived. And, like a woman, she sought to postpone it.
"Phil," she said weakly, "do not talk about it—until you are stronger."
"I am strong enough not to be treated as a child," he rejoined fretfully, turning on her a sallow face, with a bright spot in each cheek. "Is the funeral over?"
"Some days ago," she murmured, and there was a thankful feeling in her heart that it was so.
Before he had time to speak again there was a tap at the door, and a maidservant entered.
"Mr. Musard would like to speak to you for a moment, ma'am," she said to Miss Heredith.
Miss Heredith caught eagerly at the respite.
"Tell him I will come at once. Phil," she added, turning to her nephew, "I will send Vincent to you. He can tell you better than I. He has been here all through your illness, and has looked after everything."
She hurried from the room without waiting for his reply. She saw the tall form of Musard standing in the hall, and went rapidly to him.
"Phil has come to his senses, Vincent," she exclaimed, in an agitated voice. "He wants to know everything that has happened since he was taken ill. What shall we do?"
"He must be told, of course," replied Musard, with masculine decision. "It is better that he should know than be kept in suspense. How is he?"
"He seems quite normal and rational. Will you see him and tell him?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact it is advisable that he should know everything without delay. I sent for you to tell you that Detective Caldew has just arrived to ascertain if Phil can identify the revolver. I told him Phil was still ill, but he is persistent, and thinks that he ought to be allowed to see him. It would be better if Phil could see him, and settle the point."
"Oh, Vincent, do you think it is wise?"
"Yes. Phil has had a shock, but it is not going to kill him, and the sooner he takes up his ordinary life again the better it will be for him. Come, now, everything will be all right." He smiled at her anxious face reassuringly. "Leave it to me. I will see that nothing is done to agitate Phil if I do not think him strong enough to bear it. Now, let us go to him."
The bedroom door was open and Phil was standing near it as though awaiting their appearance. He held out his hand to Musard, who was surprised by the strength of his grip. He eyed the young man critically, and thought he looked fairly well considering the ordeal he had passed through.
"I am glad to see you better, Phil," he said. "How do you feel? Not very fit yet?"
"I am all right," responded Phil quickly. "Now, Musard, I want you to tell me all that has happened since I have been lying here. I am completely in the dark. Has anybody been arrested for the murder of my wife?"
He spoke in a dry impersonal tone as though of some occurrence in which he had but a remote interest, but Musard was too keen a judge of men to be deceived by his apparent calmness. He thought that it was better for him to learn the truth at once.
"Yes, Phil," he said quietly, "there has been an arrest. Hazel Rath has been arrested for the murder of Violet."
"Who?" The tone of detachment disappeared. The interrogation was flung at Musard's head with a world of incredulity and amazement.
"Hazel Rath, the housekeeper's daughter."
"In the name of God, why?"
"Gently, laddie. Sit down, and take it quietly. I'll tell you all."
Phil controlled himself with a painful effort, and took a chair near the bedside.
"Go on," he said hoarsely.
Musard seated himself on the edge of the bed at his side, and entered upon a narration of the circumstances which had led to the arrest of Hazel Rath. Phil listened attentively, but the expression of amazement never left his face. When Musard finished he was silent for a moment, and then impetuously broke out:
"I feel sure Hazel Rath did not commit this crime."
Musard was silent. That was a question upon which he did not feel called upon to advance an opinion. Miss Heredith was too moved to speak.
"Why do you not say something?" exclaimed Phil, turning on her angrily. "Surely you do not think Hazel guilty?"
"Oh, Phil," responded his aunt piteously, "it seems hard to believe, but what else can we think? There was the revolver and the handkerchief found in her mother's room, and the little greenstone brooch you gave her was picked up in Violet's bedroom."
"Why do they think she has killed her? Tell me that!"
Musard, in his narration of the facts, had omitted mention of the supposed motive, but he now made a gesture to Miss Heredith to indicate that she had better tell Phil.
"It was because the police believe that Hazel was—was in love with you, Phil," she falteringly said. "They think she murdered Violet in a fit of jealousy."
"Hazel in love with me?" He echoed the phrase in mingled scorn and amazement. "That is preposterous. If the police have nothing better than that to go on—"
"They have," interrupted Musard. "They are going on the clues I have mentioned—the brooch, the handkerchief, and the revolver."
"Where did Hazel get the revolver?"
"It is thought she got it from the gun-room."
"There are no revolvers in the gun-room," rejoined Phil quickly. "We have no revolvers, unless father bought one recently. What make is it?"
"The ownership of the revolver is a point the police have not yet been able to settle," returned Musard. "It is only an assumption on their part that Hazel got it from the gun-room. They thought it either belonged to the house or was left behind by one of the guests. Neither your aunt nor I knew, and Sir Philip was unable to settle the point. The police thought you might know. As a matter of fact, one of the detectives engaged in the investigations has just arrived from London and brought the revolver with him to see if you can identify it."
"I should like to see him. Where is he?"
"In the library. I will bring him in."
Musard left the room and quickly returned with Caldew, who entered with a business-like air.
"This is Mr. Heredith," said Musard.
"I trust you are better, Mr. Heredith," said the detective smoothly. "I am sorry to trouble you so soon after your illness, but there is a point we would like to settle before the trial of the woman who is charged with murdering your wife. We want, if possible, to establish the ownership of the weapon with which the murder was committed." He produced a revolver from the pocket of his light overcoat as he spoke. "In view of the evidence, the identification of the weapon does not matter much one way or another, but it is as well to fix the point, if we can. The girl refuses to say where she obtained the revolver—indeed, she remains stubbornly silent about the crime, and refuses to say anything about it. That doesn't matter very much either, because the evidence against her is so strong that she is bound to be convicted. Can you tell me anything about the revolver, Mr. Heredith? Do you recognize it?"
Phil was turning the revolver over in his hands, examining it closely.
"Yes," he said. "I recognize it. It belongs to Captain Nepcote."
"Captain Nepcote? Who is he?"
"He is a friend of my nephew's who was staying here, but left the afternoon of the day the murder was committed," said Miss Heredith. "He was recalled to the front, I understand. I gave his name to Superintendent Merrington as one of the guests who had been staying here."
"How do you identify the revolver as his property?" asked Caldew, turning to Phil.
"By the bullet mark in the handle. The day before my wife was killed it was raining, and some of the guests were down in the gun-room shooting at a target with Nepcote's revolver. He showed us this mark in the handle, and said that it had saved his life in France. He was leading his men in a night raid on the German lines, and a German officer fired at him at close range, but the bullet glanced off the handle of the revolver."
"Then there can be no doubt Hazel Rath got it from the gun-room," said Caldew, returning the weapon to his pocket. "Captain Nepcote must have left it behind him there, and that is where Hazel Rath found it."
"No, no! That seems impossible," said Phil.
"Well, I think it is quite possible," replied Caldew.
"Is it your opinion, then, that Miss Rath is guilty?" demanded Phil, with a note of sharp anger in his voice.
"Phil!" said Miss Heredith. "You must not excite yourself."
But the young man took no notice of his aunt's gentle remonstrance. His eyes were fixed on the detective.
"I have not the least doubt of it," was the detective's cold response.
"I must say I think you have made a terrible mistake," Phil said, striding about the room in a state of great agitation. "Hazel would not—she could not—have done this thing." He wheeled sharply around, as though struck by a sudden thought. "Are the jewels safe?" he added.
"Yes," said Miss Heredith. "We found Violet's jewel-case locked, so I put it away in the library safe."
"The question of robbery does not enter into the crime," remarked Caldew. "The motive, as we have established it, is quite different."
"I have been told of the motive you allege against this unhappy girl," said Phil indignantly. "That idea is utterly preposterous. Again, I say, I believe that you have made a blunder. I do not think Hazel would handle a revolver. She was always very nervous of fire-arms."
"That is quite true," murmured Miss Heredith.
"A jealous woman forgets her fears," said the detective rather maliciously. "She didn't stop to think of that when she wanted to use the revolver."
"And where did she get it from?" asked Phil quickly.
Caldew shrugged his shoulders, but remained silent.
"You still persist in thinking that she obtained the revolver from the gun-room?" Phil continued.
"Yes, I do."
"Do you not intend to make any further inquiries? You had better see Nepcote about the revolver. I will give you his address."
"Captain Nepcote left here to go to the front, and we have not heard from him since," Miss Heredith explained to the detective.
In a calmer moment Caldew might have realized the expediency of Phil's suggestion, but his professional dignity was affronted at what he considered the young man's attempt to interfere in the case and direct the course of the police investigations. It was the desire to snub what he regarded as a meddlesome interposition in his own business which prompted him to reply:
"It is a matter of small importance, one way or the other. It is sufficient for the Crown case to know the owner of the revolver. The point is that the murder was committed with it, and it was subsequently found in the girl's possession."
"I have nothing more to say to you," said Phil.
"Are you convinced now, Phil?" asked Miss Heredith sadly, when Caldew had taken his departure. "It was hard for me to believe at first, but everything seems so certain."
"I am not at all convinced," was the stern reply. "On the contrary, I feel sure that some terrible mistake has been made. I would stake my life on the innocence of Hazel Rath. How can you, who have known her so long, believe she would do a deed like this? The detective who has just left us is obviously a fool, and I am not satisfied that all the facts about Violet's death have been brought to light. I am going to London at once to bring another detective to inquire into the case. You know more about these things than me, Musard—can you tell me of a good man?"
"If you are determined to bring in another detective, you cannot do better than get Colwyn," replied Musard.
"Colwyn—the famous private detective? He is the very man I should like. Where is he to be found?"
"He has rooms somewhere near Ludgate Circus. I will write down the address. I think he will come, if he is not otherwise engaged."
"Why should he refuse?" demanded Phil haughtily. "I will pay him well."
"It is not a question of money with a man like Colwyn, and I advise you not to use that tone with him if you want his help."
"Very well," said Phil, pocketing the address Musard had written down. "I will catch the 6.30 evening train up. Aunt, you might tell them to give me something to eat in the small breakfast-room. I do not want to be bothered getting dinner in town."
"Phil, dear, you mustn't dream of going to London in your present state of health," expostulated Miss Heredith tearfully. "Why not leave it until you are stronger? Vincent, try and persuade him not to go."
"Phil is the best judge of his own actions in a matter like this," replied Musard gravely.
"At least let Vincent go with you, Phil," urged his aunt.
"I want nobody to accompany me," replied Phil, speaking in a tone he had never used to his aunt before. "I will go and get ready. Tell Linton to have the small car ready to drive me to the station."
Colwyn had rooms in the upper part of a block of buildings on Ludgate Hill, looking down on the Circus, above the rookery of passages which burrow tortuously under the railway arches to Water Lane, Printing House Square, and Blackfriars. It was a strange locality to live in, but it suited Colwyn. It was in the thick of things. From his windows, high up above the roar of the traffic, he could watch the ceaseless flow of life eastward and westward all day long, and far into the night.
No other part of London offered such variety and scope in the study of humanity. The City was stodgy, the Strand too uniform, Piccadilly too fashionable, and the select areas for bachelor chambers, such as the Temple and Half Moon Street, were backwaters as remote from the roaring turbulent stream of London life as the Sussex Downs or the Yorkshire Moors.
In addition to these things, the spot offered a fine contrast in walks to suit different moods. There was that avenue of wizardry, Fleet Street, whose high-priests and slaves juggled with the news of the world; there was the glitter of plate-glass fronts between the Circus and St. Paul's, the twilight stillness of the archway passages and their little squeezed shops, the isolation of Play House Yard and Printing House Square, the bustle of Bridge Street, and the Embankment. From his window Colwyn could see the City shopgirls feeding the pigeons of St. Paul's around the statue of Queen Anne.
To Colwyn, London was the place of adventures. He had lived in New York and Paris, but neither of these cities had for him the same fascination as the sprawling giant of the Thames. Paris was as stimulating and provocative as a paid mistress, but palled as quickly. In New York mysteries beckoned at every street corner, but too importunately. Neither city was sufficiently discreet for Colwyn's reticent mind. But London! London was like a woman who hid a secret life beneath an austere face and sober garments. Underneath her air of prim propriety and calm indifference were to be found more enthralling secrets than any other city of the world could reveal. It was emblematic of London that her mysteries, in their strangest aspects and phases, preserved the air of ordinary events.
Colwyn saw nothing extraordinary in this. To him Life seemed so perpetually inconsistent that there could be nothing inconsistent in any of its events. It was to his faith in this axiom, expressed after his own paradoxical fashion, that he partly owed some of those brilliant successes which had stamped him as one of the foremost criminal investigators of his day. He never rejected a story on the score of its improbability. He had seen so many unusual things in his career that he once declared that it was the unforeseen, and not the expected, which occurs most frequently in this strange world of ours. That was, perhaps, partly due to the wide gulf between human ideals and actions, but, whatever the reason, Colwyn never lost sight of the fact that the incredible, once it happened, became as commonplace as the meals we eat or the clothes we wear. It seemed to Colwyn that the unexpected happened too frequently to call forth the astonishment with which it was invariably greeted by most people. In his experience, Life was almost too prodigal of its surprises, so much so, indeed, as to be in danger of reaching the limit of its own resources. But he consoled himself, whimsically enough, with the belief that such an event was too probable ever to happen.
It was nearly eleven o'clock at night, and Colwyn, getting up from a table where he had been busily writing, walked to the window and looked down on the deserted street beneath. It was a nightly custom of his. He lived, as he worked, alone, attended only by a taciturn manservant who had been with him for many years. He accepted with characteristic philosophy the view that a man who spent his time unveiling shameful human secrets had no right to share his life with anybody. Even the articles of furniture of his lonely rooms, if endowed with any sort of entity, might have worn a furtive air in their consciousness of the secrets they had heard whispered in their owner's ears by those who had sought his counsel and assistance in their trouble and despair. There had been many such secrets poured forth in those lonely rooms, perched up high above the roar of the London traffic. It was the Confessional of the incredible.
As Colwyn stood at the window, the electric bell of the front door rang sharply through the empty building. Looking down into the street, he saw the figure of a man in the doorway beneath. He glanced at his watch. It was late for a visitor. He walked to the lift at the end of the passage and descended. As he did so, the bell in his rooms once more pealed forth beneath the pressure of an impatient hand.
The visitor, revealed by the light in the hall, was a young man muffled in a thick overcoat for protection against the sharp autumn wind which was blowing along the rain-splashed street. He stepped inside the door as Colwyn opened it, and, glancing at the detective from a pair of dark eyes just visible beneath the flap of his soft felt hat, said:
"Are you Mr. Colwyn?"
"Yes. What can I do for you?"
"I am afraid it is a very late hour for a visit," said the other, brushing the rain drops off his coat as he spoke, "but I should be very glad if you could spare me a little time, late as it is. I have come from the country to see you."
Colwyn nodded without speaking. Strange adventures had come to him at stranger hours. He showed the way to the lift, switched off the electric light he had turned on in the passage, and ascended with his visitor to his rooms. There his companion, with an impulsiveness which contrasted with the detective's quiet composure, again spoke:
"I want your assistance, Mr. Colwyn."
"Will you not be seated?" said the detective, as with a swift glance he took in the external attributes of his young and well-dressed visitor.
"Thank you. I regret to disturb you at such a late hour, but the train I travelled by was greatly delayed by an accident. I thought at first of postponing my visit till the morning, but it is so urgent—to me, at all events—that I determined to try and see you to-night."
"It was just as well that you did. I may be called out of London in the morning."
"Then I am glad that I came. My name is Heredith—Philip Heredith."
Colwyn looked at his visitor with a keener interest. The London newspapers were full of the particulars of the moat-house crime, and had published intimate accounts of the Heredith family, their wealth, social position, and standing in the county. Colwyn, as he glanced at Philip Heredith, came to the conclusion that the London picture papers had been once more guilty of deceiving their credulous readers. The portraits they had published of him in no wise resembled the young man who was now seated opposite him, regarding him with a sad and troubled look.
"I have heard of your great skill and cleverness in criminal investigation, Mr. Colwyn," continued Phil earnestly, "and wish to avail myself of your help. That is the object of my visit."
Colwyn waited for his visitor to disclose the reasons which had brought him, seeking advice. He had followed the newspaper accounts of the murder and police investigations with keen interest. The special correspondents had done full justice to the arrest of Hazel Rath. There is no room for reticence or delicacy in modern journalism, and no reserves except those dictated by fear of the law for libel. Colwyn was therefore aware that Hazel Rath figured as "the woman in the case," and was supposed to have shot the young wife in a fit of jealousy. The newspapers, in publishing these disclosures, had hinted at the existence of previous tender relations between the young husband and the arrested girl, in order to whet the public appetite for the "remarkable revelations" which it was hoped would be brought forward at the trial.
"I have come to consult you about the murder of my wife," continued Phil, speaking with an evident effort. "I should like you to make some investigations."
Colwyn was sufficiently false to his own philosophy of life to experience a feeling which he would have been the first to admit was surprise.
"The police have already made an arrest in the case," he said.
"I believe they have arrested an innocent girl."
As the young man sat there, he looked so worn and ill that Colwyn felt his sympathy go out to him. He seemed too boyish and frail to bear such a weight of tragedy on his shoulders at the outset of his life. His face wore an aspect of despair.
"If you think that a mistake has been made, you had better go to Scotland Yard," said Colwyn.
"I have already spoken to Detective Caldew, but his attitude convinced me that it was hopeless to expect any assistance from Scotland Yard, so I decided to come to you."
"In that case you had better tell me all that you know, if you wish me to help you," said the detective. "In the first place, I wish to hear all the facts of the murder itself. I have read the newspaper accounts, but they necessarily lack those more intimate details which may mean so much. I should like to hear everything from beginning to end."
In a voice which was still weak from illness, Phil did as he was requested, and related the strange sequence of events which had happened at the moat-house on the night of his wife's murder. Those events, as he described them, took on a new complexion to his listener, suggesting a deeper and more complex mystery than the newspaper accounts of the crime.
From the first the moat-house murder had appealed to Colwyn's imagination and stimulated his intellectual curiosity. There was the pathos of the youth and sex of the victim, murdered in a peaceful country home. The terrible primality of murder accords more easily with the elemental gregariousness of slum existence; its horror is accentuated, by force of contrast, in the tender simplicity of an English sylvan setting. Colwyn's chief interest lay in the fact that, although the case against Hazel Rath was as strong as circumstantial evidence could make it, the supposed motive for the crime was weak. But he reflected that there did not exist in human life any motive sufficiently strong to warrant the commission of a crime like murder. Probably no great murder had ever been justified by motive, in the sense that incitement is vindication, though human nature, ever on the alert in defence of itself, was prone to accept such excuses as passion and revenge as adequate motives for destruction. The point which perplexed Colwyn in this particular case was whether the incitement of jealousy was sufficient to impel a young girl, brought up in good social environment, which is ever a conventional deterrent to violent crime, to murder her rival in a sudden gust of passion.
"Now, let me hear your reasons for thinking that the police have made a mistake in arresting Hazel Rath," the detective said, when Phil had concluded his narration of the events of the night of the murder. "The case against her seems very strong."
"Nevertheless, I feel sure she did not do it," said Phil emphatically. "I understand her nature and disposition too well to believe her guilty. I have known her since childhood. She has a sweet and gentle nature."
"I am afraid your personal opinion will count for very little against the weight of evidence," replied Colwyn. "It is impossible to generalize in a crime like murder. My experience is that the most unlikely people commit violent crimes under sudden stress. Unless you have something more to go upon than that, your protestations will count for very little at the trial. Criminal judges know too well that human nature is capable of almost anything except sustained goodness."
It was the same point of view, only differently expressed, that Superintendent Merrington had advanced to Captain Stanhill at the moat-house the evening after the murder.
"I have other reasons for thinking Hazel Rath innocent," replied Phil. "If she had murdered my wife we would have seen her as we rushed upstairs after hearing the scream and shot. She hadn't time to escape."
"What about the window of your wife's room?"
"It is nearly twenty feet from the ground, so that would be impossible."
"How do you account for the brooch being found in your wife's bedroom? Is there any doubt that it belongs to Hazel Rath?"
"It is quite true that the brooch is hers. I gave it to her on her birthday, some years ago. The police think that Hazel is in love with me, and murdered my wife through jealousy. But that is not true. I have known her since she was a little girl, and regarded her as a sister."
Phil uttered these words with a ringing sincerity which it was impossible to doubt. But that statement, Colwyn reflected, did not carry them very far. The speaker might honestly believe that the feeling existing between himself and Hazel Rath was like the affection of brother and sister, but he was speaking for himself, and not for the girl. Who could read the secret of a woman's heart? The real question was, did Hazel Rath love Philip Heredith? There lay a motive for the murder, if she did.
"Does Hazel Rath still refuse to explain how her brooch came to be found in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom and subsequently disappeared?" inquired Colwyn after a short pause.
"I understand that she persists in remaining silent," returned the young man. "Oh, I admit the case seems suspicious against her," he continued passionately, as though in answer to a slight shrug of the detective's shoulders. "It is for that reason I have come to you. I believe her innocent, and I want you to try and establish her innocence."
"I am afraid I must decline, Mr. Heredith." A sympathetic glance of Colwyn's eyes softened the firm tone of the refusal. "Apart from your own belief in Miss Rath's innocence, you have very little to go upon."
"There is more than that to go upon," said Phil. "There is the question of the identity of the revolver. Hazel is supposed to have obtained it from the gun-room."
"I know that from the newspaper reports."
"Yes, but you do not know that the detectives have not been able to establish the ownership of the weapon until to-day. They were under the impression that it belonged to the moat-house, but neither my father nor aunt was able to settle the point. Detective Caldew visited the moat-house to-day to see if I could identify it. I immediately recognized it as the property of Captain Nepcote."
"Who is Captain Nepcote?"
"He is a friend of mine. I knew him in London before I was married. He was a friend of my wife's also. He was one of our guests at the moat-house until the day of the murder."
"Did he leave before the murder was committed?"
"Yes; some hours before."
"Then how did Hazel Rath obtain possession of his revolver?"
"That is what I do not know. I must tell you that the day before the murder some of our guests spent a wet afternoon amusing themselves shooting at a target in the gun-room. They were using Captain Nepcote's revolver. When I told Detective Caldew this, he came to the conclusion that Nepcote must have left it there after the shooting, and Hazel Rath found it when she went to look for a weapon."
"I see. And what is your own opinion?"
"I do not believe it for one moment."
"Why not?"
"For one thing, it strikes me as unlikely that Nepcote would forget his revolver when leaving the gun-room. In any case, the police are taking too much for granted in assuming, without inquiry, that he did. Caldew told me that the question of the ownership of the revolver did not affect the case against Hazel Rath in the slightest degree."
"Do you know whether the revolver was seen by anybody between the time of Captain Nepcote's departure and its discovery in Hazel Rath's possession?"
"I understand that it was not."
"Do you know whether Captain Nepcote took it from the gun-room after the target shooting?"
"That I cannot say. I left the gun-room before the shooting was finished."
"Let me see if I thoroughly understand the position," said Colwyn. "In your narrative of the events of the murder you stated that all the members of the household and the guests were in the dining-room when the murder was committed. Nepcote was not there because he had returned to London during the afternoon. Nevertheless, it was with his revolver that your wife was shot."
"That is correct," said Phil.
"If Nepcote did not leave his revolver in the gun-room the police theory would be upset on an important point, and the case would take on a new aspect. Have you any suspicions that you have not confided to me?"
"I cannot say that I have any particular suspicions," the young man replied. "I do not know what to think, but I should like to have this terrible mystery cleared up. I have not seen Nepcote since the day of the murder to ask him about the revolver. He said good-bye to me before he left, and I understood that he had received a wire from the War Office recalling him to the front. After the murder I was taken ill, as I have told you, and it was not until to-day that I was informed of what happened during my illness."
"I am inclined to agree with you that the case wants further investigation," said Colwyn.
"Then will you undertake it?" asked Phil.
The feeling that he was face to face with one of the deepest mysteries of his career acted as an irresistible call to Colwyn's intellect. He consulted the leaves of his engagement book.
"Yes, I will come," he said.
Phil glanced at his watch.
"I am afraid we can hardly catch the last train to Heredith," he said.
"We will drive down in my car," said Colwyn. "Please excuse me for a few moments."
He left the room, and returned in a few moments fully equipped for the journey.
"Let us start," he said.
His tone was decided and imperative, his movements quick and full of energy. That was wholly like him, once he had decided on his course.