"Housekeeper to another gentleman!" replied Miss Pett, acidly.

"Who was he?"

"Well, if you want to know, he was a Major Stilman, a retired officer--though what that has----"

"Where did Major Stilman live?" asked Brereton.

"He lived at Kandahar Cottage, Woking," replied Miss Pett, who was now showing signs of rising anger. "But----"

"Answer my questions, if you please, and don't make remarks," said Brereton. "Is Major Stilman alive?"

"No, he isn't--he's dead this ten years," answered Miss Pett. "And if you're going to ask me any more questions about who and what I am, young man, I'll save you the trouble. I was with Major Stilman a many years, and before that I was store-keeper at one London hotel, and linen-keeper at another, and before that I lived at home with my father, who was a respectable farmer in Suss.e.x. And what all this has to do with what we're here for, I should like----"

"Just give me the names of the two hotels you were at in London, will you?" asked Brereton.

"One was the _Royal Belvedere_ in Bayswater, and the other the _Mervyn Crescent_ in Kensington," replied Miss Pett. "Highly respectable, both of 'em."

"And you come originally from--where in Suss.e.x?"

"Oakbarrow Farm, near Horsham. Do you want to know any----"

"I shan't trouble you much longer," said Brereton suavely. "But you might just tell me this--has Mr. Kitely ever had any visitors since he came to Highmarket?"

"Only one," answered Miss Pett. "And it was my nephew, who came up for a week-end to see him on business. Of course, I don't know what the business was. Mr. Kitely had property in London; house-property, and----"

"And your nephew, as his solicitor, no doubt came to see him about it,"

interrupted Brereton. "Thank you, Miss Pett--I don't want to trouble you any more."

He sat down as the housekeeper left the witness-box--confident that he had succeeded in introducing a new atmosphere into the case. Already there were whisperings going on in the crowded court; he felt that these country folk, always quick to form suspicions, were beginning to ask themselves if there was not something dark and sinister behind the mystery of Kitely's murder, and he was callous enough--from a purely professional standpoint--to care nothing if they began to form ideas about Miss Pett. For Brereton knew that nothing is so useful in the breaking-down of one prejudice as to set up another, and his great object just then was to divert primary prejudice away from his client.

Nevertheless, nothing, he knew well, could at that stage prevent Harborough's ultimate committal--unless Harborough himself chose to prove the _alibi_ of which he had boasted. But Harborough refused to do anything towards that, and when the case had been adjourned for a week, and the prisoner removed to a cell pending his removal to Norcaster gaol, a visit from Brereton and Avice in company failed to move him.

"It's no good, my girl; it's no good, sir," he said, when both had pleaded with him to speak. "I'm determined! I shall not say where I was last night."

"Tell me--in secret--and then leave me to make use of the knowledge, also in secret," urged Brereton.

"No, sir--once for all, no!" answered Harborough. "There's no necessity.

I may be kept locked up for a bit, but the truth about this matter'll come out before ever I'm brought to trial--or ought to be. Leave me alone--I'm all right. All that bothers me now, my girl, is--you!"

"Then don't bother," said Avice. "I'm going to stay with Mrs. Northrop.

They've insisted on it."

Brereton was going out of the cell, leaving father and daughter together, when he suddenly turned back.

"You're a man of sense, Harborough," he said. "Come, now--have you got anything to suggest as to how you can be helped?"

Harborough smiled and gave his counsel a knowing look.

"Aye, sir!" he answered. "The best suggestion you could get. If you want to find out who killed Kitely--go back! Go back, sir--go inch by inch, through Kitely's life!"

CHAPTER X

THE HOLE IN THE THATCH

Bent, taking his guest home to dinner after the police-court proceedings, showed a strong and encouraging curiosity. He, in common with all the rest of the townsfolk who had contrived to squeeze into the old court-house, had been immensely interested in Brereton's examination of Miss Pett. Now he wanted to know what it meant, what it signified, what was its true relation to the case?

"You don't mean to say that you suspect that queer old atomy of a woman!" he exclaimed incredulously as they sat down to Bent's bachelor table. "And yet--you really looked as if you did--and contrived to throw something very like it into your voice, too! Man, alive!--half the Highmarket wiseacres'll be sitting down to their roast mutton at this minute in the full belief that Miss Pett strangled her master!"

"Well, and why not?" asked Brereton, coolly. "Surely, if you face facts, there's just as much reason to suspect Miss Pett as there is to suspect Harborough. They're both as innocent as you are, in all probability.

Granted there's some nasty evidence against Harborough, there's also the presumption--founded on words from her own lips--that Miss Pett expects to benefit by this old man's death. She's a strong and wiry woman, and you tell me Kitely was getting somewhat enfeebled--she might have killed him, you know. Murders, my dear fellow, are committed by the most unlikely people, and for curious reasons: they have been committed by quite respectable females--like Miss Pett--for nothing but a mere whim."

"Do you really suspect her?" demanded Bent. "That's what I want to know."

"That's what I shan't tell you," replied Brereton, with a good-humoured laugh. "All I shall tell you is that I believe this murder to be either an exceedingly simple affair, or a very intricate affair. Wait a little--wait, for instance, until Mr. Christopher Pett arrives with that will. Then we shall advance a considerable stage."

"I'm sorry for Avice Harborough, anyway," remarked Bent, "and it's utterly beyond me to imagine why her father can't say where he was last night. I suppose there'd be an end of the case if he'd prove where he was, eh?"

"He'd have to account for every minute between nine and ten o'clock,"

answered Brereton. "It would be no good, for instance, if we proved to a jury that from say ten o'clock until five o'clock next morning, Harborough was at--shall we say your county town, Norcaster. You may say it would take Harborough an hour to get from here to Norcaster, and an hour to return, and that would account for his whereabouts between nine and ten last night, and between five and six this morning. That wouldn't do--because, according to the evidence, Kitely left his house just before nine o'clock, and he may have been killed immediately. Supposing Harborough killed him at nine o'clock precisely, Harborough would even then be able to arrive in Norcaster by ten. What we want to know, in order to fully establish Harborough's innocence is--where was he, what was he doing, from the moment he left his cottage last night until say a quarter past nine, the latest moment at which, according to what the doctor said, the murder could have been committed?"

"Off on one of his poaching expeditions, I suppose," said Bent.

"No--that's not at all likely," answered Brereton. "There's some very strange mystery about that man, and I'll have to get at the truth of it--in spite of his determined reticence! Bent!--I'm going to see this thing right through! The Norcaster a.s.sizes will be on next month, and of course Harborough will be brought up then. I shall stop in this neighbourhood and work out the case--it'll do me a lot of good in all sorts of ways--experience--work--the interest in it--and the _kudos_ I shall win if I get my man off--as I will! So I shall unashamedly ask you to give me house-room for that time."

"Of course," replied Bent. "The house is yours--only too glad, old chap.

But what a queer case it is! I'd give something, you know, to know what you really think about it."

"I've not yet settled in my own mind what I do think about it," said Brereton. "But I'll suggest a few things to you which you can think over at your leisure. What motive could Harborough have had for killing Kitely? There's abundant testimony in the town--from his daughter, from neighbours, from tradesmen--that Harborough was never short of money--he's always had more money than most men in his position are supposed to have. Do you think it likely that he'd have killed Kitely for thirty pounds? Again--does anybody of sense believe that a man of Harborough's evident ability would have murdered his victim so clumsily as to leave a direct clue behind him? Now turn to another side. Is it not evident that if Miss Pett wanted to murder Kitely she'd excellent chances of not only doing so, but of directing suspicion to another person? She knew her master's habits--she knew the surroundings--she knew where Harborough kept that cord--she is the sort of person who could steal about as quietly as a cat. If--as may be established by the will which her nephew has, and of which, in spite of all she affirmed, or, rather, swore, she may have accurate knowledge--she benefits by Kitely's death, is there not motive there? Clearly, Miss Pett is to be suspected!"

"Do you mean to tell me that she'd kill old Kitely just to get possession of the bit he had to leave?" asked Bent incredulously. "Come, now,--that's a stiff proposition."

"Not to me," replied Brereton. "I've known of a case in which a young wife carefully murdered an old husband because she was so eager to get out of the dull life she led with him that she couldn't wait a year or two for his natural decease; I've heard of a case in which an elderly woman poisoned her twin-sister, so that she could inherit her share of an estate and go to live in style at Brighton. I don't want to do Miss Pett any injustice, but I say that there are grounds for suspecting her--and they may be widened."

"Then it comes to this," said Bent. "There are two people under suspicion: Harborough's suspected by the police--Miss Pett's suspected by you. And it may be, and probably is, the truth that both are entirely innocent. In that case, who's the guilty person?"

"Ah, who indeed?" a.s.sented Brereton, half carelessly. "That is a question. But my duty is to prove that my client is not guilty. And as you're going to attend to your business this afternoon, I'll do a little attending to mine by thinking things over."

When Bent had gone away to the town, Brereton lighted a cigar, stretched himself in an easy chair in front of a warm fire in his host's smoking-room, and tried to think clearly. He had said to Bent all that was in his mind about Harborough and about Miss Pett--but he had said nothing, had been determined to say nothing, about a curious thought, an unformed, vague suspicion which was there. It was that as yet formless suspicion which occupied all his mental powers now--he put Harborough and Miss Pett clean away from him.

And as he sat there, he asked himself first of all--why had this curious doubt about two apparently highly-respectable men of this little, out-of-the-world town come into his mind? He traced it back to its first source--Cotherstone. Brereton was a close observer of men; it was his natural instinct to observe, and he was always giving it a further training and development. He had felt certain as he sat at supper with him, the night before, that Cotherstone had something in his thoughts which was not of his guests, his daughter, or himself. His whole behaviour suggested pre-occupation, occasional absent-mindedness: once or twice he obviously did not hear the remarks which were addressed to him. He had certainly betrayed some curious sort of confusion when Kitely's name was mentioned. And he had manifested great astonishment, been much upset, when Garthwaite came in with the news of Kitely's death.

Now here came in what Brereton felt to be the all-important, the critical point of this, his first attempt to think things out. He was not at all sure that Cotherstone's astonishment on hearing Garthwaite's announcement was not feigned, was not a piece of pure acting. Why? He smiled cynically as he answered his own question. The answer was--_Because when Cotherstone, Garthwaite, Bent, and Brereton set out from Cotherstone's house to look at the dead man's body, Cotherstone led the way straight to it_.

How did Cotherstone know exactly where, in that half-mile of wooded hill-side, the murder had been committed of which he had only heard five minutes before? Yet, he led them all to within a few yards of the dead man, until he suddenly checked himself, thrust the lantern into Garthwaite's hands and said that of course he didn't know where the body was! Now might not that really mean, when fully a.n.a.lyzed, that even if Cotherstone did not kill Kitely himself during the full hour in which he was absent from his house he knew that Kitely had been killed, and where--and possibly by whom?

Anyway, here were certain facts--and they had to be reckoned with.