“Your appearance, no,” admitted Simon, “but—”
“Well, if I go to Keldale armed with a card of introduction from you, to make enquiry about the shootings, I think I can undertake to turn the conversation on to other matters without exciting suspicion.”
“Conversation with whom?” enquired the lawyer sceptically.
“I had thought of Mr. Bisset, the butler.”
“Oh—” began Mr. Rattar with a note of surprise, and then pulled himself up.
“Yes,” smiled Mr. Carrington, “I have picked up a little about the household. My friends of last night were exceedingly communicative—very gossipy indeed. I rather gather that omniscience is Mr. Bisset’s foible, and that he is not averse from conversation.”
The look in Simon’s eye seemed to indicate that his respect for this easygoing young man was increasing; though whether his liking for him was also increased thereby was not so manifest. His reply was again a mere grunt.
“Well, that can easily be arranged,” said Carrington, “and it is obviously the first thing to do.”
He blew a ring of smoke from his lips, skilfully sent a second ring in chase of it, and then turning his monocle again on the lawyer, enquired (though not in a tone that seemed to indicate any very acute interest in the question):
“Who do you think yourself murdered Sir Reginald Cromarty?”
XXIII
Simon’s Views
“Well,” said Mr. Rattar deliberately, “I think myself that the actual evidence is very slight and extremely inclusive.”
“You mean the direct evidence afforded by the unfastened window, position of the body, table said to have been overturned, and so forth?”
“Exactly. That evidence is slight, but so far as it goes it seems to me to point to entry by the door and to the man having been in the house for some little time previously.”
“Well?” said Carrington in an encouraging voice.
“So much for the direct evidence. I may be wrong, but that is my decided opinion. No bad characters are known to the police to have been in the county at that time, and there was no robbery.”
“Apparently confirming the direct evidence?”
“Decidedly confirming it—or so it seems to me.”
“Then you think there is something in the popular theory that the present baronet and Miss Farmond were the guilty parties?”
Simon was silent for a moment, but his face was unusually expressive.
“I fear it looks like it.”
“An unpleasant conclusion for you to come to,” observed Mr. Carrington. “You are the family lawyer, I understand.”
“Very unpleasant,” Mr. Rattar agreed. “But, of course, there is no absolute proof.”
“Naturally; or they’d have been arrested by now. What sort of a fellow is Sir Malcolm?”
“My own experience of him,” said the lawyer drily, “is chiefly confined to his visits to my office to borrow money of me.”
“Indeed?” said Carrington with interest. “That sort of fellow, is he? He writes, I understand.”
Simon nodded.
“Any other known vices?”
“I know little about his vices except that they cost him considerably more than he could possibly have paid, had it not been for Sir Reginald’s death.”
“So the motive is plain enough. Any evidence against him?”
Simon pursed his lips and became exceedingly grave.
“When questioned next morning by the superintendent of police and myself, he led us to understand that he had retired to bed early and was in no position to hear or notice anything. I have since found that he was in the habit of sitting up late.”
“ ‘In the habit,’ ” repeated Carrington quickly. “But you don’t suggest he sat up that night in particular?”
“Undoubtedly he sat up that night.”
“But merely as he always did?”
“He might have been waiting for his chance on the previous nights.”
Carrington smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then asked:
“But there is no evidence that he left his room or was heard moving about that night, is there?”
“There is not yet any positive evidence. But he was obviously in a position to do so.”
“Was his room near or over the library?”
“N—no,” said the fiscal, and there seemed to be a hint of reluctance in his voice.
Carrington glanced at him quickly and then gazed up at the ceiling.
“What sort of a girl is Miss Farmond?” he enquired next.
“She is the illegitimate daughter of a brother of the late Sir Reginald’s.”
Carrington nodded.
“So I gathered from the local gossips. But that fact is hardly against her, is it?”
“Why not?”
Carrington looked a little surprised.
“Girls don’t generally murder their uncles for choice, in my own experience; especially if they are also their benefactors.”
“This was hardly the usual relationship,” said the lawyer with a touch of significance.
“Do you suggest that the irregularity is apt to breed crime?”
Simon’s grunt seemed to signify considerable doubt as to the morals of the type of relative.
“But what sort of girl is she otherwise?”
“I should call Miss Farmond the insinuating type. A young man like yourself would probably find her very attractive—at first anyhow.”
Mr. Carrington seemed to ponder for a moment on this suggestive description of Miss Farmond’s allurements. And then he asked:
“Is it the case that she is engaged to Sir Malcolm?”
“Certainly.”
“You are sure?”
Something in his voice seemed to make the lawyer reflect.
“Is it called in question?” he asked.
Carrington shook his head.
“By nobody who has spoken to me on the subject. But I understand that it has not yet been announced.”
“No,” said Simon. “It was a secret engagement; and marriage would have been impossible while Sir Reginald lived.”
“So there we get the motive on her part. And you yourself, Mr. Rattar, know both these young people, and you believe that this accusation against them is probably well founded?”
“I believe, Mr. Carrington, that there is no proof and probably never will be any; but all the evidence, positive and negative, together with the question of motive, points to nobody else. What alternative is possible?”
“That is the difficulty, so far,” agreed Carrington, but his thoughts at the moment seemed to be following his smoke rings up towards the ceiling. For a few moments he was silent, and then he asked:
“What other people benefited by the will and to what extent?”
The lawyer went to his safe, brought out the will,
