as to be in a proper position to offer her his protection?

A little thought gave him the answer to the first of these problems. Evidently no suspicion must fall on Whymper other than through the notes. If he were to rush away directly the tragedy occurred, any general suspicion which might have been aroused might be directed towards him for that very reason. That would be no test of the safety of passing the notes. But if three weeks elapsed before he made a move, suspicion must depend on the notes alone.

With regard to the second point French thought he might ask for information.

“I don’t want to be unnecessarily personal, Mr. Whymper, but there is just one matter I should like further light on. You were, I understand you to say, anxious to marry this young lady and desired to protect her from trouble with Mme. Blancquart. If that were so, would it not have been natural for you to propose to her and so obtain the right to protect her?”

Whymper made a gesture of exasperation.

“By Heaven, I only wish I had! It might have come out all right. But, Inspector, I have been a coward. To be strictly truthful, I was afraid. I’ll tell you just what happened. After the tragedy I was very much upset by this whole affair. And it made me awkward and self-conscious with Miss Averill to have to keep secret a thing which concerned her so closely. I tried not to show it in my manner, but I don’t think I quite succeeded. I think my manner displeased her. At all events she grew cold and distant, and⁠—well! there it is. I didn’t dare to speak. I was afraid I would have no chance. I thought I would wait until I found something out about her father. Then when this began to seem impossible, I determined to risk all and speak, but then you came threatening me with arrest for theft. I couldn’t propose until that was over. And the question is, is it over now? Are you going to arrest me or how do I stand?”

“I’m not going to arrest you, Mr. Whymper. You have given me the explanations I asked for, and so far I see no reason to doubt your story. I am glad you have told me. But though I believe you, I may say at once that I believe also the whole thing was Roper’s invention. Why did he not show the letter he alleged Theodore Averill had written?”

“I don’t know. I assumed there was something further in it which Mr. Averill wished to keep from Roper and me.”

French shook his head.

“Much more likely it didn’t exist and he wanted to save the labour and risk of forging it. Now, Mr. Whymper, there is only one thing to be done. You or I, or both of us together must go to Miss Averill and ask her the truth. I do not mean that we must tell her this story. We shall simply ask her where her father lived, and where she was born. Records will be available there which will set the matter at rest.”

Whymper saw the common sense of this proposal, but he said that nothing would induce him to ask such questions of Miss Averill. It was, therefore, agreed that French should call on her and make the inquiries.

Ruth was at home when French reached the Oxleys’, and she saw him at once. French apologised for troubling her so soon again, and then asked some questions as to the possible amount of petrol and paraffin which had been at Starvel on . From this he switched the conversation on to herself, and with a dexterity born of long practice led her to talk of her relatives. So deftly did he question her, that when in a few minutes he had discovered all he wished to know, she had not realised that she had been pumped.

In answer to his veiled suggestions she told him that her father’s name was Theodore Averill, that he had lived in Bayonne, where he had held a good appointment in the wine industry, and that he had married a French lady whom he had met at Biarritz. This lady, her mother, had died when she was born and her father had only survived her by about four years. On his death she had come to her uncle Simon, he being her only other relative. She was born in Bayonne and baptised, she believed, by the Anglican clergyman at Biarritz. Her father was a member of the Church of England and her mother a Huguenot.

“This,” French said when, half an hour later, he was back in the vestry room of the old church, “will lead us to certainty. I will send a wire to the Biarritz police and have the records looked up. Of course, I don’t doubt Miss Averill’s word for a moment, but it is just conceivable that she might have been misled as to her birth. However, we want to be absolutely sure.”

He wired and it may be mentioned here that in the course of a couple of days he received the following information:⁠—

  1. Mr. Theodore Averill was a wine merchant and lived at Bayonne.

  2. Mr. Averill and Mlle. Anne de Condillac had been married in the English church at Biarritz on the .

  3. Mrs. Averill had died on the , while giving birth to a daughter.

  4. This daughter, whose name was Ruth, was baptised at the Anglican church, Biarritz, on the .

  5. Mr. Theodore Averill had died on the , his little four-year old daughter then being sent to England.

So that was certainty at last. Roper was the evil genius behind all these involved happenings. He it was who had got Ruth away from the doomed house; he had sent Whymper off to pass the stolen notes so that he might

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