The reply was so emphatic that it created further merriment.
"Well, tell me quickly what this new secret is," exclaimed Mrs. Eastham, "because in five minutes I must have a long talk with my cook. She has to prepare pies and pastry sufficient to feed nearly a hundred school children next Monday, and it is a matter of much calculation."
Brett took his leave.
"I knew that good old soul would be tactful," he said to himself. "Now I wonder how Winter made such a colossal mistake as to imagine that Hume murdered his cousin. He was sure of the affections of a delightful girl; he could not succeed to the property; he has declined to take up the t.i.tle. What reason could he have for committing such a crime?"
Then a man walked up the road--a man dressed like a farmer or grazier, rotund, strongly-built, cheerful-looking. He halted opposite Mrs.
Eastham"s house, where the barrister still stood drawing on his gloves on the doorstep.
"Yes," said Brett aloud, "you _are_ an egregious a.s.s, Winter."
"Why, Mr. Brett?" asked the unabashed detective. "Isn"t the make-up good?"
"It is the make-up that always leads you astray. You never theorise above the level of the _Police Gazette_."
Mr. Winter yielded to not unnatural annoyance. With habitual caution, he glanced around to a.s.sure himself that no other person was within earshot; then he said vehemently:
"I tell you, Mr. Brett, that swine killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer."
"You use strong language."
"Not stronger than he deserves."
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard he was in London, and watched him. I saw him go to your chambers and guessed what was up, so I came down here to see you and tell you what I know."
"Out of pure good-nature?"
"You can believe it or not, Mr. Brett. It is the truth."
"He has been tried and acquitted. He cannot be tried again. Does Scotland Yard--"
"I"m on my holidays."
Brett laughed heartily.
"I see!" he cried. "A "bus-driver"s holiday! For how long?"
"Fourteen days."
"You are nothing if not professional. I suppose it was not your first offence, or they might have let you off with a fine."
The detective enjoyed this departmental joke. He grinned broadly.
"Anyhow, Mr. Brett," he said, "you and I have been engaged on too many smart bits of work for me to stand quietly by and let you be made a fool of."
The barrister came nearer, and said, in a low tone:
"Winter, you have never been more mistaken in your life. Now, attend to my words. If you help me you will, in the first place, be well paid for your services. Secondly, you will be able to place your hand on the true murderer of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, or I will score my first failure.
Thirdly, Scotland Yard will give you another holiday, and I can secure you some shooting in Scotland. What say you?"
The detective looked thoughtful. Long experience had taught him not to argue with Brett when the latter was in earnest.
"I will do anything in my power," he said, "but there is more in this business than perhaps you are aware of--more than ever transpired at the a.s.sizes."
"Quite so, and a good deal that has transpired since. Now. Winter, don"t argue, there"s a good fellow. Go and engage the landlord of the local inn in a discussion on crops. I am off to Beechcroft Hall. Mr. Hume and I will call for you on our way back to Stowmarket. In our private sitting-room at the hotel there I will explain everything."
They parted. Brett was promptly admitted by Mrs. Crowe, and walked rapidly up the avenue.
Winter watched his retreating figure.
"He"s smart, I know he"s smart," mused the detective. "But he doesn"t know everything about this affair. He doesn"t know, I"ll be bound, that David Hume-Frazer waited for his cousin that night outside the library. I didn"t know it--worse luck!--until after he was acquitted. And he doesn"t know that Miss Nellie Layton didn"t reach home until 1.30 a.m., though she left the ball at 12.15, and her house is, so to speak, a minute"s walk distant.
And she was in a carriage. Oh, there"s more in this case than meets the eye! I can"t say which would please me most, to find out the real murderer, if Hume didn"t do it, or prove Mr. Brett to be in the wrong!"
CHAPTER VII
HUSBAND AND WIFE
Brett did not hurry on his way to the Hall. Already things were in a whirl, and the confusion was so great that he was momentarily unable to map out a definite line of action.
The relations between Capella and his wife were evidently strained almost to breaking point, and it was this very fact which caused him the greatest perplexity.
They had been married little more than six months. They were an extraordinarily handsome couple, apparently well suited to each other by temperament and mutual sympathies, whilst their means were ample enough to permit them to live under any conditions they might choose, and gratify personal hobbies to the fullest extent.
What, then, could have happened to divide them so completely?
Surely not Capella"s new-born pa.s.sion for Helen Layton. Not even a hot-blooded Southerner could be guilty of such deliberate rascality, such ineffable folly, during the first few months after his marriage to a beautiful and wealthy wife.
No, this hypothesis must be rejected. Margaret Capella had drifted apart from her husband almost as soon as they reached England on their return as man and wife. Capella, miserable and disillusioned, buried alive in a country place--for such must existence in Beechcroft mean to a man of his inclinations--had discovered a startling contrast between his pa.s.sionate and moody spouse, and the bright, pleasant-mannered girl whose ill-fortune it was to create discord between the inmates of the Hall.
This theory did not wholly exonerate the Italian, but it explained a good deal. The barrister saw no cause as yet to suspect Capella of the young baronet"s murder. Were he guilty of that ghastly crime, his motive must have been to secure for himself the position he was now deliberately imperilling--all for a girl"s pretty face.
The explanation would not suffice. Brett had seen much that is hidden from public ken in the vagaries of criminals, but he had never yet met a man wholly bad, and at the same time in full possession of his senses.
To adopt the hasty judgment arrived at by Hume and Mrs. Eastham, Capella must be deemed capable of murdering his wife"s brother, of bringing about the death of his wife after securing the reversion of her vast property to himself, and of falling in love with Helen--all in the same breath. This species of criminality was only met with in lunatics, and Capella impressed the barrister as an emotional personage, capable of supreme good as of supreme evil, but quite sane.
The question to be solved was this: Why did Capella and his wife quarrel in the first instance? Perhaps, that way, light might come.
He asked a footman if Mrs. Capella would receive him. The man glanced at his card.
"Yes, sir," he said at once. "Madam gave instructions that if either you or Mr. David called you were to be taken to her boudoir, where she awaits you."