XII
Robert Ellery
It had been a struggle for Ellery to keep away. He had heard nothing of the tragedy until Wednesday evening, when he had been to dine with his guardian, Harry Lucas, at Hampstead. There had been, of course, nothing in the morning papers, and he had not seen an evening paper. He had, indeed, spent the day in a long country walk, returning to Hampstead across the Heath in time to dress for dinner at his guardian’s house, where he always kept a change of clothes, and often stayed the night. His walk had been taken with a purpose—no less a purpose than going thoroughly with himself into the question of his feeling for Joan Cowper. He had been a silent witness of the scene at Sir Vernon’s party, when Joan had declared outright that nothing would ever make her marry John Prinsep. That outburst of hers had meant a great deal to him. He had hardly concealed from himself before the fact that he was head over ears in love with Joan; but he had always taught himself to regard his love as hopeless, and tried to make himself believe that he ought to get the better of it, and accept as a foregone conclusion Joan’s marriage with Prinsep. He had been told by Sir Vernon himself that they were engaged, and, of course, no word on the matter had passed between him and Joan.
Her definite repudiation of the engagement had therefore come to him as a surprise, and, for the first time, had allowed him to think that his own suit might not be altogether hopeless. Joan liked him: that he knew well enough; but loving was, of course, another story, and he hardly allowed himself, even now, to hope that she loved him. But he made up his mind, after what had passed, first to spend the day in the country, thinking things over, or rather charging at full speed down the Middlesex lanes while the processes of thought went on of their own momentum. Then, he promised himself to tell his guardian in the evening exactly how matters stood, and to ask for his advice. Harry Lucas had known well how to make himself the friend and counsellor, as well as the guardian, of the young man.
Ellery went straight upstairs and dressed without seeing his guardian. But, as soon as they met in the smoking-room before dinner, he saw that something very serious was the matter. Lucas had expected that Ellery would already have heard the news; but, when he found that he knew nothing, he told him the story in a few words, explaining how the bodies had been discovered, but saying nothing about clues or about any opinion he may have entertained as to the identity of the murderer—or the murderers. Lucas himself had been down to Liskeard House to offer his help: he had seen Sir Vernon for a few minutes, and had talked with Joan and Mary Woodman. He had also seen Superintendent Wilson at Scotland Yard, and offered any help it might be in his power to give. But, beyond the bare facts discovered in the morning—startling enough in themselves—he knew little, and, of course, at this stage the inquiries of Inspector Blaikie were only at their beginning.
Ellery asked no questions at first. The news seemed for the moment to strike him dumb, and the first clear thought that arose in his mind was that, now at least, there could be no more question of Joan marrying Prinsep. Ellery had most cordially disliked and distrusted Prinsep, and he could not pretend to feel any great sorrow at his death. But he had greatly liked George Brooklyn, and, after his first thought, it was mainly the terrible sorrow that had come upon all those who were left that filled his mind. For a time he and Lucas spoke of nothing but the depth of the tragedy that had come upon the Brooklyns.
But, by-and-by, Ellery’s curiosity began to assert itself. After all there was mystery as well as tragedy in the events of Tuesday night; and mystery had always exercised over him a strong fascination. “I feel a beast,” he said to his guardian, “for thinking of anything but the sorrow of it all; but I’m damned if I can help wanting to find out all about it.”
“My dear Bob, that’s perfectly natural. It would be so in anyone; but it’s more than natural in your case. You write detective novels; and here you are faced with a crime mystery in real life. You would be more than human if you didn’t want to unravel it. Besides, seriously enough, it wants unravelling, and I don’t think the police are going to have an easy time in finding out the truth.”
Then Lucas told him of the strange clues that had been discovered—how all the evidence seemed to point to the conclusion that Prinsep had murdered George Brooklyn, and equally to the conclusion that George had murdered Prinsep.
“Of course,” Lucas added, “that is physically quite impossible; and personally, I’m not in the least disposed to believe that either of them killed the other. I’m sure in my own mind that someone else killed both of them; but I haven’t a ghost of an idea who it can have been.”
“And so there’s nothing been found out to throw suspicion on anybody else?”
“So far as I know, nothing at all. You’d better do a bit of detective work on your own account.”
Ellery said nothing in reply to that. While they had been talking, he had been turning over in his mind the question whether, after what had happened, he could possibly speak to his guardian about his love for Joan. He had told himself firmly that he could not; but, just when he had thought his mind made up, he found himself
