“Mr. Brandreth, sir,” the maid announced, ushering in a lawyer
perceptibly less rosy and debonair than he had been the previous day.
“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,” he said, taking a letter from his
pocket and handing it to Wilson. “This has just reached me by hand,
from the Grange.” Wilson took it and read it twice through, gravely
and carefully. “Have a look, Michael,” he said.
The letter was hastily scrawled and blotted on a large sheet of
Loring-crested paper:
“DEAR NED,”--it ran--“It seems to me I’ve been a damned fool
to get into such a racket over William’s death. Of course, now
I’ve thought it over, it’s quite clear that it can’t have been
anything but suicide. I don’t know why you ever let me go on
talking rubbish about somebody having killed him--particularly
in front of Mr. Wilson--unless you didn’t want to tell me
point-blank that I’d driven him to do it. You can say that or
anything else you like--I’m not a bit proud of myself over this
business altogether, and I’d eat dirt if it would do anybody any
good. As it is, I think the best thing I can do is to clear out,
so I’m going--no address, no flowers, and apologies for troubling
you. Will you do me one last service, and tell Mr. Wilson I’ve
been a fool, and I’m sorry I bothered him? Of course it was
suicide, tell him. He seemed a decent fellow, and perhaps he’ll
understand, and stop Lockwood kicking up a fuss. Anyway, I leave
it to you. I’m sorry to be a plague.
“SYLVIA.”
“Now what do you think of that?” said the lawyer. “Isn’t that just
like a woman?”
“It seems to me just like Mrs. Meston, if I may say so,” said Wilson.
“The authentic note.”
“Makes me look a fool,” said the lawyer testily. “First she makes
a great fuss about her husband’s being murdered, and gives me no
peace till I agree to go and consult you. Then she butts into the
consultation without being asked, and drags you aside downstairs and
won’t tell me what she’s said. And now she calmly asks me to call the
whole thing off, and just remarks that she’s going away----”
“She’s gone,” Michael said. “She went last night. I told you.”
“Yes, but I didn’t grasp that she’d gone for ever,” Wilson said.
“Nor did I. The Squire didn’t say so. But she must have.”
“Then why on earth couldn’t she have written to me last night?” the
lawyer demanded.
“Surely,” said Wilson, “the explanation’s obvious. She did not want
to give you an opportunity of objecting.”
“Well, anyway, there it is. What do you make of it?”
“That was the question I was going to put to you. What do _you_ make
of it?”
“I?” The lawyer stopped and gazed at him. “Oh, I don’t make anything.
I suppose she means what she says----”
“Surely a dangerous assumption?”
“What do you mean?”
“It occurs to me that Mrs. Meston may have decided that for reasons
of her own it now suits her better to regard her husband as _not_
having been murdered. I suspect the lady’s ideas of truth are, shall
we say, a trifle pragmatic.”
“What suits her’s the truth, you mean. Oh, I dare say. All women are
like that, more or less.”
“And Mrs. Meston, I should say, decidedly more.”
“Oh, have it your own way. But what the devil is one to believe?”
“In this matter, I should say, nothing whatever,” Wilson said. “Mrs.
Meston, as a witness, cancels out. She has voted both ways. Are you
going to take that letter to Colonel Lockwood, by the way?”
“I don’t know.” The lawyer looked up at him slyly. “Should you think
it would have a good effect?”
“My dear sir,” Wilson said in his best manner, “Colonel Lockwood is a
public servant. I hope--I think he will accord to that letter exactly
the weight it deserves.”
“It’s open to everybody to hope, of course,” Brandreth said.
“Whether,” Wilson continued, “you choose to take the responsibility
of holding back evidence from him is, of course, your own
affair--though I may remind you that the matter is not now entirely
in your keeping. By the way”--as Brandreth turned to go--“you didn’t
by any chance mention to Mrs. Meston our meeting yesterday afternoon,
did you?”
“I told her I’d seen you up-stream, of course,” Brandreth said
innocently. “She was naturally anxious to hear how her investigation
was getting on.”
“You will, I think, make my position somewhat difficult if you
continue to dog my steps and publish bulletins of progress,” said
Wilson.
“Dear, dear, I’m so sorry,” said the lawyer impenitently. “I didn’t
know it was private--nor that police-officers were so sensitive to
harmless gossip. I didn’t tell Sylvia you found her frock in the
boathouse, though; I didn’t know that till afterwards.” And before
Michael’s gasp of astonishment could translate itself into words, he
was gone.