Having obtained the evidence of the adultery, I now felt myself in a position to put pressure on Munting, and accordingly went round to see him again.
“I perfectly appreciate,” I said, “the reasons for your silence at our last interview. But if I tell you that I have in my hands independent proof that Lathom was Margaret Harrison’s lover, perhaps you will feel justified in assisting my inquiries.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“My dear man,” he said, “if you have proof already, I don’t see what assistance you require. May I ask what you call proof? After all, one doesn’t make these accusations without sufficient grounds.”
“I have got the letters written to Lathom by my stepmother,” I said, “and they leave the matter in no doubt whatever.”
“Indeed?” said he. “Well, I won’t ask you where you got them from. Private detective work is not in my line. If you really believe that your father was driven to do away with himself, I am extremely sorry—but what can one do about it?”
“I do not think so,” I said. “I believe, and these letters afford strong evidence to my mind, that my father was cruelly and deliberately murdered by Lathom at Margaret Harrison’s instigation. And I mean to prove it.”
“Murdered?” he cried. “Good God, you can’t mean that! That’s absolutely impossible. Lathom may be a bit of a rotter in some ways, but he’s not a murderer. I’ll swear he isn’t that. You’re absolutely mistaken.”
“Will you read the letters?”
“No,” he said. “Look here. You’re a man of the world. If things have got to this point, I don’t mind admitting that Lathom did have some sort of an affair with Mrs. Harrison. I did what I could to make him drop it, but, after all, these things will sometimes happen. I told him it was a poor sort of game to play, and when I got the opportunity—over that Milsom affair—I told him I’d shut up about it on condition he cleared out. He assured me afterwards, in the most solemn way, that it was all finished with. Why, damn it, I asked him about it the very day we went down to Manaton, and he repeated that the whole affair was absolutely over and done with.”
“He was wise,” I said dryly, “since he was taking you down there to view my father’s dead body. Even you might have suspected something if you had gone to The Shack in the knowledge that it was to Lathom’s interest to find what he did find.”
His face changed. I had touched him on the raw somewhere.
“Did you, as a matter of fact, believe Lathom?”
“I believed him—yes.” He turned his pipe thoughtfully over between his fingers. “I believed that the affair had been put an end to. But I was not altogether sure that Lathom’s affection for Mrs. Harrison had ceased.”
“And when you found that my father had died so opportunely—did no suspicion enter your mind?”
“Well—I admit it did just pass through my mind that Harrison might have done it himself. I—I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know that I did really believe it. But it did occur to me as a possibility.”
“Nothing more?”
“Absolutely nothing more.”
“Will you read the letters, and tell me if, after that, you still think there was nothing more?”
He hesitated.
“If you are so sure that Lathom is innocent, you may be able to prove his innocence.”
He looked at me doubtfully, and slowly put out his hand for the letters. He read the endorsement by the solicitor, and looked sharply at me again, but said nothing. I waited while he read the documents through—first quickly, then for a second time slowly and with great attention.
“You will notice,” I said, “that, shortly before the time when he told you the affair was over, Margaret Harrison had written him a letter clearly indicating that she believed herself to be about to have a child by him.”
“Yes, I see that.”
“And that he was not informed that this belief was erroneous, till after my father’s death.”
“No.”
“Plenty of motive for murder there.”
“Plenty of motive, certainly. But motive by itself is nothing. Good heavens, man, if everybody committed murder because they had a motive, precious few of us would die natural deaths.”
“But you will admit that murder was being urged upon him in various ways, in all these letters.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to admit that. Mrs. Harrison is an emotional, imaginative woman. She picks up phrases out of books. Plenty of people talk in this vague way about love—about its being supreme, and justifying itself, and sweeping obstacles aside and so on, without ever intending to put their words into action. I’ve written that kind of thing myself—in books.”
“Very likely. As a modern novelist you need not be expected to uphold a high standard of morals. But in practice, I take it, you would not wish to excuse or justify murder.”
“No. I confess to an old-fashioned prejudice against murder. It may be inconsistent of me, but I do. And so, I am sure, would Lathom.”
“Lathom is obviously very much under the influence of Margaret Harrison.”
“I should have said it was the other way round.”
“In some things. In theory, no doubt. But when it comes to doing things, I should say she was infinitely more practical—and more unscrupulous. But say, if you like, he is only under the influence of a strong passion—don’t you think that might lead him to do things which conflicted with his principles, or prejudices, or whatever you like to call them? Come now, you have called me a man of the world. Murders are done every day, for much less motive than Lathom had.”
He drummed on the table.
“Well,” he burst out at last, “I’ll admit that. I’ll admit—for the sake of argument—that Lathom might have murdered your father, though I don’t believe
