You'll understand later, I think.'
'Very well,' sighed Miss Dammers. 'But do let's keep away from the detective - story atmosphere. All we want to do is to solve this difficult case, not mystify each other.'
'I have my reasons, Alicia,' frowned Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, and rather obviously proceeded to collect her thoughts. 'Where was I? Oh yes, the evidence. Now this is very interesting. I have succeeded in obtaining two pieces of quite vital evidence which I have never heard brought forward before.
'The first is that Sir Eustace was not in love with - ' Mrs. Fielder - Flemming hesitated; then, as the plunge had already been taken for her, followed the intrepid Mr. Bradley into the deeps of complete candour ' - with Miss Wildman at all. He intended to marry her simply for her money - or rather, for what he hoped to get of her father's money. I hope, Sir Charles,' added Mrs. Fielder - Flemming frostily, 'that you will not consider me slanderous if I - allude to the fact that you are an exceedingly rich man. It has a most important bearing on my case.'
Sir Charles inclined his massive, handsome head. 'It is hardly a matter of slander, madam. Simply one of taste, which is outside my professional orbit. I fear it would be a waste of time for me to attempt to advise you on it.'
'That is very interesting, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming,' Roger hastily interposed on this exchange of pleasantries. 'How did you discover it?'
'From Sir Eustace's man, Mr. Sheringham,' replied Mrs. Fielder - Flemming not without pride. 'I interrogated him. Sir Eustace had made no secret of it. He seems to confide most freely in his man. He expected, apparently, to be able to pay off his debts, buy a racehorse or two, provide for the present Lady Pennefather, and generally make a fresh and no doubt discreditable start. He had actually promised Barker (that is his man's name) a present of a hundred pounds on the day he 'led the little filly to the altar,' as he phrased it. I am sorry to hurt your feelings, Sir Charles, but I have to deal with facts, and feelings must go down before them. A present of ten pounds bought me all the information I wanted. Quite remarkable information, as it turned out.' She looked round triumphantly.
'You don't think, perhaps,' ventured Mr. Chitterwick with an apologetic smile, 'that information from such a tainted source might not be entirely reliable? The source seems so very tainted. Why, I don't think my own man would sell me for a ten - pound note.'
'Like master like man,' returned Mrs. Fielder - Flemming shortly. 'His information was perfectly reliable. I was able to check nearly everything he told me, so that I think I am entitled to accept the small residue as correct too.
'I should like to quote another of Sir Eustace's confidences. It is not pretty, but it is very, very illuminating. He had made an attempt to seduce Miss Wildman in a private room at the Pug - Dog Restaurant (that, for instance, I checked later), apparently with the object of ensuring the certainty of the marriage he desired. (I am sorry again. Sir Charles, but these facts must be brought out.) I had better say at once that the attempt was unsuccessful. That night Sir Eustace remarked (and to his valet of all people, remember); ' You can take a filly to the altar, but you can't make her drunk.' That, I think, will show you better than any words of mine just what manner of man Sir Eustace Pennefather is. And it will also show you how overwhelmingly strong was the incentive of the man who really loved her to put her for ever out of the reach of such a brute.
'And that brings me to the second piece of my evidence. This is really the foundation stone of the whole structure, the basis on which the necessity for murder (as the murderer saw it) rested, and the basis at the same time of my own reconstruction of the crime. Miss Wildman was hopelessly, unreasonably, irrevocably infatuated with Sir Eustace Pennefather.'
As an artist in dramatic effect, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming was silent for a moment to allow the significance of this information to sink into the minds of her audience. But Sir Charles was far too personally preoccupied to be interested in significances.
'And may one ask how you found that out, madam?' he demanded, swelling with sarcasm. 'From my daughter's maid?'
'From your daughter's maid,' responded Mrs. Fielder - Flemming sweetly. 'Detecting, I discover, is an expensive hobby, but one mustn't regret money spent in a good cause.'
Roger sighed. It was plain that, once this ill - fortuned child of his invention had died a painful death, the Circle (if it had not been completely squared by then) would be found to be without either Mrs. Fielder - Flemming or Sir Charles Wildman; and he knew which of the two it would be. It was a pity. Sir Charles, besides being such an asset from the professional point of view, was the only leavening apart from Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick of the literary element; and Roger, who had attended a few literary parties in his earlier days, was quite sure he would not be able to face a gathering that consisted of nothing but people who made their livings by their typewriters.
Besides, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming really was being a little hard on the old man. After all, it was his daughter who was in question.
'I have now,' said Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, 'established an overwhelming motive for the man who is in my mind to eliminate Sir Eustace. In fact it must have seemed to him the only possible way out of an intolerable situation. Let me now go on to connect him with the few facts allowed us by the anonymous murderer.
'When the Chief Inspector the other evening permitted us to examine the forged letter from Mason and Sons I examined it closely, because I know something about typewriters. That letter was typed on a Hamilton machine. The man I have in mind has a Hamilton typewriter at his place of business. You may say that might be only a coincidence, the Hamilton being so generally used. So it might; but if you get enough coincidences lumped together, they cease to become coincidences at all and become certainties.
' In the same way we have the further coincidence of Mason's notepaper. This man has a definite connection with Mason's. Three years ago, as you may remember. Mason's were involved in a big lawsuit. I forget the details, but I think they brought an action against one of their rivals. You may remember, Sir Charles?'
Sir Charles nodded reluctantly, as if unwilling to help his antagonist even with this unimportant information. 'I ought to,' he said shortly. 'It was against the Fearnley Chocolate Company for infringement of copyright in an advertisement figure. I led for Mason's.'
'Thank you. Yes, I thought it was something like that. Very well, then. This man was connected with that very case. He was helping Mason's, on the legal side. He must have been in and out of their office. His opportunities for possessing himself of a piece of their notepaper would have been legion. The chances by which he might have found himself three years later in possession of a piece would be innumerable. The paper had yellowed edges; it must have been quite three years old. It had an erasure. That erasure, I suggest, is the remains of a brief note on the case jotted down one day in Mason's office. The thing is obvious. Everything fits.
'Then there is the matter of the post - mark. I agree with Sir Charles that we may take it for granted that the murderer, cunning though he is, and anxious though he might be to establish an alibi, would not entrust the posting of the fatal parcel to any one else. Apart from a confederate, which I am sure we may rule out of the question, it would be far too dangerous; the name of Sir Eustace Pennefather could hardly escape being seen, and the connection later established. The murderer, secure in his conviction that suspicion will never fall on himself of all people (just like all murderers that have ever been), gambles a possible alibi against a certain risk and posts the thing himself. It is therefore advisable, just to clinch the case against him, to connect the man with the neighbourhood of the Strand between the hours of eight - thirty and nine - thirty on that particular evening.
'Surprisingly enough I found this task, which I had expected to be the most difficult, the easiest of all. The man of whom I am thinking actually attended a public dinner that night at the Hotel Cecil, a re - union dinner to be exact of his old school. The Hotel Cecil, I need not remind you, is almost opposite Southampton Street. The Southampton Street post - office is the nearest one to the Hotel. What could be easier for him than to slip out of his seat for the five minutes which is all that would be required, and be back again almost before his neighbours had noticed his action?'
'What indeed?' murmured the rapt Mr. Bradley.
'I have two final points to make. You remember that in pointing out the resemblance of this case to the Molineux affair, I remarked that this similarity was more than surprising, it was significant. I will explain what I meant by that. What I meant was that the parallel was far too close for it to be just a coincidence. This case is a deliberate copy of that one. And if it is, there is only one inference. This murder is the work of a man steeped in criminal history - of a criminologist. And the man I have in mind is a criminologist.
'My last point concerns the denial in the newspaper of the rumoured engagement between Sir Eustace Pennefather and Miss Wildman. I learnt from his valet that Sir Eustace did not send that denial himself. Nor did Miss Wildman. Sir Eustace was furiously angry about it. It was sent, on his own initiative without consulting either of
