SEARCHING FOR A CLUE.
The landlord of the "Carne's Arms" was somewhat puzzled by a stranger
who had just been dropped at his door by the coach from Plymouth. He did
not look like either a fisherman or an artist, or even a wandering
tourist. His clothes were somewhat rough, and the landlord would have
taken him for a farmer, but what could any strange farmer be stopping at
Carnesford for? There were no farms vacant in the neighbourhood, nor any
likely to be, so far as the landlord knew; besides, the few words his
guest had spoken as he entered had no touch of the Devonshire dialect.
While he was standing at the door, turning the matter over in his
mind--for he rather prided himself upon his ability to decide upon the
calling and object of his guests, and was annoyed by his failure to do
so in the present instance--the man he was thinking of came out of the
coffee-room and placed himself beside him.
"Well, landlord, this is a pretty village of yours; they told me in
Plymouth it was as pretty a place as any about, and I see they were
right."
"Yes, most folks think it's pretty," the landlord said, "although I am
so accustomed to it myself I don't see a great deal in it."
"Yes, custom is everything. I have been accustomed for a great many
years to see nothing much but plains, with clumps of bush here and
there, and occasionally a herd of deer walking across it. I have been
farming down at the Cape, and so, you see, a quiet, pretty place like
this is very pleasant to me."
"I should think it is quiet enough farming there," the landlord said. "I
have heard from folk who have been out in some of those parts that you
often haven't a neighbour nearer than four miles away."
"That's true enough, landlord, but the life is not always quiet for all
that. It's not quiet, for instance, when you hear the yell of a hundred
or so savages outside your windows, or see a party driving half your
cattle away into the bush."
"No, I shouldn't call that quiet; and that is what you have been doing?"
"Yes, I was in the disturbed part when the Kaffirs rose. Most of our
neighbours were killed, and we had a hard time of it, but some mounted
police came up just in time. I have had trouble three or four times
before, and it's no use going on for years rearing cattle if they are to
be all swept away by the natives, and you are running the risk of
getting your throat cut in the bargain; so, after this last affair, I
locked up my farmhouse, drove off what cattle I had got left, and sold
them for what I could get for them, and here I am."
"Yes, here you are," repeated the landlord; "and what next?"
"The ship touched at Plymouth, and I thought I might as well get out
there as anywhere else. Well, there is too much noise and bustle at
Plymouth. I haven't been used to it, and so now I am just looking for a
little place to suit me. I have been up to Tavistock, and then some one
said that Carnesford was a pretty village. I said I would look at
Carnesford, and so you see here I am."
"What sort of a place are you looking for?" the landlord asked, looking
at his visitor closely, and mentally appraising his worth.
"Oh, quite a little place, I should say about twenty pounds a year. I
suppose one could get a girl to help from the village, and could live
for another eighty. That's about what I could afford."
"Oh, yes, I should say you could do that," said the landlord,
thoughtfully, "but I don't know that there is any such place to let
anywhere about here. There is a nice cottage at the other end of the
village just empty. It's got a good garden, and is rather away from the
rest of the houses; but the rent is only half-a-crown a week. That
wouldn't do for you."
"Well, I wanted something better than that; but still I might have a
look at it. Of course if I took it I should want to stay, and I might as
well spend a little money in doing it up to my fancy as in paying
higher rent. By the way, my name is Armstrong. Perhaps you wouldn't mind
putting on your hat and showing me this place you speak of. We have been
used to roughing it, and don't want anything fine."
The cottage was certainly large and roomy, and stood in a pretty garden.
But its appearance was not prepossessing, for it differed from most of
the other little houses in the village inasmuch as it was not, like
them, half hidden by roses and creepers climbing over it.
"Yes, it's rough, decidedly rough," Mr. Armstrong said, "still there is
a pretty view down the valley. Now I should save nearly fourteen pounds
in rent by taking this instead of a twenty pound a year house; and if
one were to put up a verandah round it, touch up the windows somehow,
and put pretty paper on the walls, I should say that at the end of two
years it would stand me in just the same. That and plenty of roses and
things would make it a pretty little place. Who is the landlord?"
"The landlord is Mr. Carne, up at The Hold; that's the big house on the
hill. But he is away at present. Mr. Kirkland, a lawyer at Plymouth, is
his agent, and sees to the letting of his houses and that sort of thing.
His clerk comes over once a month to collect the rents. I expect you
would have to go to him even if Mr. Carne was at home. Squire was never
much down in the village in the best of times, and we have hardly seen
his face since his sister's death."
"Yes, they were telling us about that affair at Plymouth," the colonist
said, quietly. "It was a bad business. Well, have you got some pretty
sociable sort of fellows in the village? I like a chat as well as any
man, and I should want some one to talk to."
"Well, I don't know that they would be your sort," the landlord said,
doubtfully. "There's the clergyman--and the doctor----"
"Oh, no. I don't want to have to do with clergymen and doctors--we
colonists are pretty rough and ready fellows, and it's no odds to us
what a man is. A man stops at your door, and in he comes, and he is
welcome--though he is only a shepherd on the look-out for work;
sometimes one of the Kaffir chiefs with nothing on but a blanket and a
leather apron, will stalk in and squat down and make himself at home.
Oh, no. It's tradesmen I mean, and perhaps the small farmers round."
"Well, we are pretty well off for that, Mr. Armstrong. There is Hiram
Powlett, the miller, and Jacob Carey, the blacksmith--they drop in
pretty regular every evening and smoke a pipe with me, in what I call my
snuggery; and there's old Reuben Claphurst--he was the clerk at one
time, and is a wonderful chap for knowing the history of every family
for miles round; and there's some of the farmers often come in for a
glass--if you are not too proud for that sort of company."
"Proud! Bless your heart, what is there to be proud about; ain't I been
working as a farmer for years and years with no one to talk to but my
own hands?--I mean my own men. No, that's just the thing to suit me;
anyhow, I think I will try the experiment. If at the end of a couple of
years I don't like it, why, there is no harm done."
"Well, I am sure we shall be all glad to have you here, Mr. Armstrong;
we like getting some one from outside, it freshens our ideas up a bit
and does us good. We are cheerful enough in summer with the artists that
come here sketching, and with the gentlemen who sometimes come to fish;
but the rest of the year I don't often have a stranger at the 'Carne's
Arms.'"
Two days later Mr. Armstrong returned to Carnesford with a builder from
Plymouth. The following day, five or six workmen appeared, and in a
fortnight a considerable transformation had been made in the cottage. A
verandah was run round the front and two sides. Some rustic woodwork
appeared round the windows, and the interior of the house was
transformed with fresh paper and paint. Nothing could be done in the way
of roses and creepers, as these could not be moved at that time of year,
for it was now just midsummer.
The day after the workmen went out, a waggon load of furniture, simple
and substantial, arrived, and on the following day the coach brought
down the new tenants. A girl had already been engaged in the village to
act as servant. Miss Armstrong was quietly and plainly dressed, and
might, by her attire, be taken for the daughter of a small farmer, and
the opinion in the village, as the newcomers walked through on their way
to the cottage, was distinctly favourable. In a very short time Mr.
Armstrong became quite a popular character in Carnesford, and soon was
on speaking terms with most of the people. He won the mothers' hearts by
patting the heads of the little girls, and praising their looks. He had
a habit of carrying sweets in his pockets, and distributing them freely
among the children, and he would lounge for hours at the smith's door,
listening to the gossip that went on, for in Carnesford, as elsewhere,
the forge was the recognised meeting-place of those who had nothing to
do. He was considered a wonderful acquisition by the frequenters of the
snuggery at the "Carne's Arms," and his stories of life at the Cape gave
an added interest to their meetings. Hearing from Hiram Powlett that he
had a wife and daughter, he asked him to get them, as a matter of
kindness, to visit his daughter; and within a fortnight of his arrival,
he and Mary went to tea to the Mill.
Several times the conversation in the snuggery turned upon the murder at
The Hold. In no case did the new-comer lead up to it, but it cropped up
as the subject which the people of Carnesford were never weary of
discussing. He ventured no opinions and asked no questions upon the
first few occasions when the subject was being discussed, but smoked his
pipe in silence, listening to the conversation.
"It seems strange to me," he said at last, "that you in this village
should never have had a suspicion of any one except this Captain Mervyn;
I understand that you, Mr. Claphurst, and you, Mr. Carey, have never
thought of any one else; but Mr. Powlett--he always says he is sure it
isn't him. But if it wasn't him, Mr. Powlett, who do you think it was?"
"Ah, that is more than I can tell," Hiram replied. "I have thought, and
I have thought, till my head went round, but I can't see who it can have
been."
"Miss Carne seems to have had no enemies?"
"No, not one--not as I ever heard of. She was wonderful popular in the
village, she was; and as for the Squire, except about poaching, he never
quarrelled with any one."
"Had he trouble with poachers, then?"
"Well, not often; but last year, before that affair, there was a bad lot
about. They were from Dareport--that's two miles away, down at the mouth
of the river--with one or two chaps from this village, so it was said.
About a fortnight--it may be three weeks--before Miss Carne was killed,
there was a fight up in the woods between them and the gamekeepers. One
of the keepers got stabbed, but he didn't die until some time
afterwards; but the jury brought it in wilful murder all the same. It
didn't matter much what verdict they brought in, 'cause the man as the
evidence went against had left the country--at least, he hadn't been
seen hereabouts."
"And a good job too, Hiram--a good job too," Jacob Carey put in.
"Yes," Hiram said, "I admit it; it was a good job as he was gone--a good
job for us all. He would never have done any good here, anyway; and the
best job as ever he did for himself, as I know of, was when he took
himself off."
There was a general chorus of assent.
"What was the man's name?" Mr. Armstrong asked, carelessly.
"His name was George Forester," Jacob Carey said.
As they were going out from the snuggery that evening, the landlord made
a sign to Mr. Armstrong that he wanted to speak to him. He accordingly
lingered until the other men had left.
"Oh, I thought I would just tell you, Mr. Armstrong, seeing that your
daughter and you have been to the Mill, it's just as well not to talk
about the poaching and George Forester before Ruth Powlett. You see,
it's rather a sore subject with her. She was engaged to that George
Forester, and a lot of trouble it gave her father and mother. Well, I
expect she must have seen now that she had a lucky escape. Still, a girl
don't like a man as she has liked being spoken against, so I thought
that I would say a word to you."
"Thank you; that's very friendly of you. Yes, you may be sure that I
won't introduce the subject. I am very glad you told me, or I might have
blundered upon it and hurt the girl's feelings. She doesn't look very
strong, either. She has a nervous look about her, I think."
"She used to be very different, but she had a great shock. She was the
first, you know, to go into Miss Carne's room and find her dead. She was
her maid before that, and she was ill for weeks after. It came on the
top of an illness, too. She fell down on the hill coming home from
church, and they found her lying insensible there, and she was very
bad--had the doctor there every day. Then came this other affair, and I
dare say this business of George Forester's helped too. Anyhow, she was
very bad, and the doctor thought at one time that she wouldn't get over
it."
Mr. Armstrong walked home thoughtfully.
"Well, father, what is your news?" Mary Armstrong said, as he entered.
"I can see you have heard something more than usual."
"Well, my dear, I don't know that it's anything, but at the same time it
certainly is new, and gives us something to follow up. It seems that
there was a fellow named George Forester living somewhere about here,
and he was engaged to your friend, Ruth Powlett, but her father and
mother disapproved of it highly. They say he was a bad lot; he got mixed
up with a gang of poachers, and some little time before this murder,
about three weeks before, they had a fight with Mr. Carne's keepers; one
of the keepers was mortally wounded, it was said by this George
Forester. The man lived for some time, but at last died of the wound,
and the jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder against George
Forester, who had been missing from the time of the fight."
"Yes, father, but that seems no great clue."
"Perhaps not, Mary, but it shows at least that there was one fellow
about here who may be considered to have had a quarrel with the Carnes,
and who was a thoroughly bad character, and who--and this is of
importance--was engaged, with or without her parents' consent, to Miss
Carne's own maid."
Mary gave a little gasp of excitement.
"Now it seems, further," her father went on, "that some time between
this poaching affray and the murder--I could not inquire closely into
dates--Ruth Powlett was found insensible on the road going up the hill,
and was very ill for some days; she said she had had a fall, and of
course she may have had, although it is not often young women fall down
so heavily as to stun themselves. But it may of course have been
something else."
"What else, father?"
"Well, it is possible she may have met this lover of hers, and that they
may have had a quarrel. Probably she knew he had been engaged in this
poaching affair, and may have told him that she would have nothing more
to do with him, and he may have knocked her down. Of course, this is all
mere supposition, but it is only by supposition that we can grope our
way along. It seems she was well enough anyhow to go up to her place
again at The Hold, for she was the first to discover the murder, and the
shock was so great that she was ill for weeks, in fact in great danger;
they say she has been greatly changed ever since. I don't know whether
anything can be made of that, my dear."
"I don't know. I don't see what, father," Mary said, after thinking for
some time, "unless she is fancying since that it was this man who did
it. Of course, anyhow, it would be a fearful shock for a girl to find
her mistress lying murdered, and perhaps it may be nothing more than
that."
"No doubt, it may be nothing more than that, Mary; but it's the other
side of the case we have to look at. Let us piece the things together.
Here we have four or five facts, all of which may tell. Here is a bad
character in the village; that is one point. This man had a poaching
affray with Mr. Carne's keepers; he killed, or at any rate the coroner's
jury found that he killed, one of the keepers. He is engaged to Miss
Carne's own maid. This maid is just after this poaching business found
insensible in the wood, and tells rather an improbable story as to how
it came about. She is the first to enter her mistress's room, and then
she has a serious illness. Of course, any girl would be shocked and
frightened and upset, but it is not so often that a serious illness
would be the result. And lastly, she has been changed ever since. She
has, as you remarked to me the other day, an absent, preoccupied sort of
way about her. Taken altogether, these things certainly do amount to
something."
"I think so too, father; I think so too," Mary Armstrong said, walking
up and down the little room in her excitement. "I do think there may be
something in it; and you see, father, after this poaching business, the
man wanted to get away, and he may have been in want of money, and so
have thought of taking Miss Carne's watch and jewels to raise money to
take him abroad."
"So he might, my dear. That is certainly a feasible explanation, but
unfortunately, instead of taking them away, you see he buried them."
"Yes, father, but he only just pushed them into the ground, the report
said; because on reading through the old files of the newspapers the
other day I particularly noticed that. Well, father, you see, perhaps
just as he was leaving the house a dog may have barked, or something may
have given him a scare, and he may just have hidden them in the ground,
intending to come for them next day; and then, what with the excitement
and the police here, and the search that was being made, he could get no
opportunity of getting them up again, and being afraid of being arrested
himself for his share in the poaching affray, he dared not hang about
here any longer, but probably went down to Plymouth and got on board
ship there. Of course, all this is nothing more than supposition, still
it really does not seem improbable, father. There is only one difficulty
that I can see. Why should he have killed Miss Carne, because the
doctors say that she was certainly asleep?"
"We cannot tell, dear. She may have moved a little. He may have thought
that she would wake, and that he had better make sure. He was a
desperate man, and there is no saying what a desperate man will do.
Anyhow, Mary, this is a clue, and a distinct one, and we must follow it
up. It may lead us wrong in the end, but we shall not be losing time by
following it, for I shall keep my ears open, and may find some other and
altogether different track."
"How had we better follow it?" Mary asked, after having sat silent for
some minutes. "This Forester is gone, and we have no idea where. I think
the only person likely to be able to help us is Ruth Powlett."
"Exactly so, my dear."
"And she would not be likely to speak. If she knows anything she would
have said it at the trial had she not wished to shield this man, whom
she may love in spite of his wickedness."
"Quite so, my dear; and besides," and he smiled, "young women in love
are not disposed to believe in their lovers' guilt."
"How can you say so, father?" Mary said, indignantly; "you would not
compare----"
"No, no, Mary; I would not compare the two men; but I think you will
admit that even had the evidence against Ronald Mervyn been ten times as
conclusive as it was, you would still have maintained his innocence
against all the world."
"Of course I should, father."
"Quite so, my dear; that is what I am saying; however, if our
supposition is correct in this case, the girl does believe him to be
guilty, but she wishes to shield him, either because she loves him still
or has loved him. It is astonishing how women will cling to men even
when they know them to be villains. I think, dear, that the best way of
proceeding will be for you to endeavour to find out from Ruth Powlett
what she knows. Of course it will be a gradual matter, and you can only
do it when she has got to know and like you thoroughly."
"But, father," Mary said, hesitating, "will it not be a treacherous
thing for me to become friends with her for the purpose of gaining her
secret?"
"It depends how you gain it, Mary. Certainly it would be so were you to
get it surreptitiously. That is not the way I should propose. If this
girl has really any proof or anything like strong evidence that the
murder was committed by this man Forester, she is acting wrongly and
cruelly to another to allow the guilt to fall upon him. In time, when
you get intimate with her, intimate enough to introduce the subject,
your course would be to impress this upon her so strongly as to induce
her to make an open confession. Of course you would point out to her
that this could now in no way injure the man who is her lover, as he has
gone no one knows where, and will certainly never return to this
country, as upon his appearance he would at once be arrested and tried
on the charge of killing the gamekeeper. All this would be perfectly
open and above-board. Then, Mary, you could, if you deemed it expedient,
own your own strong interest in the matter. There would be nothing
treacherous in this, dear. You simply urge her to do an act of justice.
Of course it will be painful for her to do so, after concealing it so
long. Still, I should think from the little I have seen of her that she
is a conscientious girl, and is, I doubt not, already sorely troubled in
her mind over the matter."
"Yes, father, I agree with you. There would be nothing treacherous in
that. I have simply to try to get her to make a confession of anything
she may know in the matter. I quite agree with you in all you have said
about the man, but I do not see how Ruth Powlett can know anything for
certain, whatever she may suspect; for if she was, as you say,
dangerously ill for a long time after the murder, she cannot very well
have seen the man, who would be sure to have quitted the country at
once."
"I am afraid that that is so, Mary. Still, we must hope for the best,
and if she cannot give us absolute evidence herself, what she says may
at least put us in the right track for obtaining it. Even if no legal
evidence can be obtained, we might get enough clues, with what we have
already, to convince the world that whereas hitherto there seemed no
alternative open as to Mervyn's guilt, there was in fact another against
whom there is at any rate a certain amount of proof, and whose character
is as bad as that of Captain Mervyn is good. This would in itself be a
great step. Mervyn has been acquitted, but as no one else is shown to
have been connected with it in any way, people are compelled, in spite
of his previous character, in spite of his acquittal, in spite in fact
even of probability, to consider him guilty. Once shown that there is at
least reasonable ground for suspicion against another, and the opinion,
at any rate of all who know Mervyn, would at once veer round."
"Very well, father; now you have done your part of the work by finding
out the clue, I will do mine by following it up. Fortunately, Ruth
Powlett is a very superior sort of girl to any one in the village, and I
can make friends with her heartily and without pretence. I should have
found it very hard if she had been a rough sort of girl, but she
expresses herself just as well as I do, and seems very gentle and nice.
One can see that even that sharp-voiced stepmother of hers is very fond
of her, and she is the apple of the miller's eye. But you must not be
impatient, father; two girls can't become great friends all at once."
"I think, on the whole, Miss Armstrong," her father said, "you are quite
as likely to become impatient as I am, seeing that it is your business
much more than mine."
"Well, you may be sure I shall not lose more time than I can help,
father." Mary Armstrong laughed. "You don't know how joyous I feel
to-night, I have always been hopeful, but it did seem so vague before.
Now that we have got what we think to be a clue, and can set to work at
once, I feel ever so much nearer to seeing Ronald again."
The consequence of this conversation was that Mary Armstrong went very
frequently down to the mill, and induced Ruth Powlett, sometimes, to
come up and sit with her.
"I am very glad, Mr. Armstrong," Hiram Powlett said, one evening, when
they happened to be the first two to arrive in the snuggery, "that my
Ruth seems to take to your daughter. It's a real comfort to Hesba and
me. You would have thought that she would have taken to some of the
girls she went to school with, but she hasn't. I suppose she is too
quiet for them, and they are too noisy for her. Anyhow, until now, she
has never had a friend, and I think it will do her a world of good. It's
bad for a girl to be alone, and especially a girl like Ruth. I don't
mind telling you, Mr. Armstrong, that Hesba and I have an idea that she
has got something on her mind, she has been so changed altogether since
Miss Carne's murder. I might have thought that she had fretted about
that scamp Forester going away, for at one time the girl was very fond
of him, but before it happened she told me that she had found out he
would never make her a good husband, and would break it off altogether
with him; so you see I don't think his going away had anything to do
with it. Once or twice I thought she was going to say something
particular to me, but she has never said it, and she sits there and
broods and broods till it makes my heart ache to see her. Now she has
got your daughter to be friends with, perhaps she may shake it off."
"I hope she may, Mr. Powlett. It's a bad thing for a girl to mope. I
know Mary likes your daughter very much; perhaps, if she has anything on
her mind, she will tell Mary one of these days. You see, when girls get
to be friends, they open their hearts to each other as they won't do to
any one else."
"I don't see what she can have on her mind," the miller said, shaking
his head. "It may only be a fancy of mine. Hesba and I have talked it
over a score of times."
"Very likely it's nothing, after all," Mr. Armstrong said. "Girls get
strange fancies into their heads, and make mountains out of molehills.
It may be nothing, after all; still, perhaps she would be all the better
for the telling of it."
Hiram Powlett shook his head decidedly. "Ruth isn't a girl to have
fancies. If she is fretting, she is fretting over something serious. I
don't know why I am talking so to you, Mr. Armstrong, for I have never
spoken to any one else about it; but your daughter seems to have taken
so kindly to Ruth that it seems natural for me to speak to you."
"I am glad you have done so, Mr. Powlett, and I hope that good may come
from our talk."
It was not until a fortnight after this chat that Mary had anything to
communicate to her father, for she found that whenever she turned the
conversation upon the topic of the murder of Miss Carne, Ruth evidently
shrank so much from it that she was obliged to change the subject.
"To-day, father, I took the bull by the horns. Ruth had been sitting
there for some time working without saying a word, when I asked her
suddenly, as if it was what I had been thinking over while we were
silent: 'What is your opinion, Ruth? Do you think that Captain Mervyn
really murdered his cousin?' She turned pale. She has never much colour,
you know, but she went as white as a sheet, and then said, 'I am quite
sure that he did not do it, but I don't like talking about it.' 'No, of
course not,' I said. 'I can quite understand that after the terrible
shock you had. Still, it is awful to think that this Captain Mervyn
should have been driven away from his home and made an outcast of if he
is innocent.' 'It serves him right,' Ruth said, passionately. 'How dare
he insult and threaten my dear Miss Margaret? Nothing is too bad for
him.' 'I can't quite agree with you there,' I said. 'No doubt he
deserved to be punished, and he must have been punished by being tried
for his cousin's murder; but to think of a man spending all his life,
branded unjustly with the crime of murder, is something too terrible to
think of.' 'I dare say he is doing very well,' she said, after a pause.
'Doing well,' I said, 'doing well! What can you be thinking of, Ruth?
What sort of doing well can there be for a man who knows that at any
moment he may be recognised, that his story may be whispered about, and
that his neighbours may shrink away from him; that his wife, if he ever
marries, may come to believe that her husband is a murderer, that his
children may bear the curse of Cain upon them? It is too terrible to
think of. If Captain Mervyn is guilty, he ought to have been hung; if he
is innocent, he is one of the most unfortunate men in the world.' Ruth
didn't say anything, but she was so terribly white that I thought she
was going to faint. She tried to get up, but I could see she couldn't,
and I ran and got her a glass of water. Her hand shook so that she could
hardly hold it to her lips. After she drank some she sat for a minute or
two quiet, then she murmured something about a sudden faintness, and
that she would go home. I persuaded her to stay a few minutes longer. At
last she got up. 'I am subject to fainting fits,' she said; 'it is very
silly, but I cannot help it. Yes, perhaps what you say about Captain
Mervyn is right, but I never quite saw it so before. Good-bye,' and then
she went off, though I could see she was scarcely able to walk
steadily. Oh, father, I feel quite sure that she knows something; that
she can prove that Ronald is innocent if she chooses; and I think that
sooner or later she will choose. First of all she was so decided in her
assertion that Ronald was innocent; she did not say 'I think,' or 'I
believe,' she said 'I am quite sure.' She would never have said that
unless she knew something quite positive. Then the way that she burst
out that it served him right, seems to me, and I have been thinking
about it ever since she went away an hour ago, as if she had been trying
to convince herself that it was right that he should suffer, and to
soothe her own conscience for not saying what would prove him innocent."
"It looks like it, Mary; it certainly looks like it. We are on the right
trail, my girl, I am sure. That was a very heavy blow you struck her
to-day, and she evidently felt it so. Two or three more such blows, and
the victory will be won. I have no doubt now that Ruth Powlett somehow
holds the key of this strange mystery in her hand, and I think that what
you have said to her to-day will go a long way towards inducing her to
unlock it. Forester was the murderer of Miss Carne, I have not a shadow
of doubt, though how she knows it for certain is more than I can even
guess."