Chapter XVIII

“Mr. Brandreth, sir,” the maid announced, ushering in a lawyer perceptibly less rosy and debonair than he had been the previous day.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,” he said, taking a letter from his pocket and handing it to Wilson. “This has just reached me by hand, from the Grange.” Wilson took it and read it twice through, gravely and carefully. “Have a look, Michael,” he said.

The letter was hastily scrawled and blotted on a large sheet of Loring-crested paper:

“DEAR NED,”--it ran--“It seems to me I’ve been a damned fool
to get into such a racket over William’s death. Of course, now
I’ve thought it over, it’s quite clear that it can’t have been
anything but suicide. I don’t know why you ever let me go on
talking rubbish about somebody having killed him--particularly
in front of Mr. Wilson--unless you didn’t want to tell me
point-blank that I’d driven him to do it. You can say that or
anything else you like--I’m not a bit proud of myself over this
business altogether, and I’d eat dirt if it would do anybody any
good. As it is, I think the best thing I can do is to clear out,
so I’m going--no address, no flowers, and apologies for troubling
you. Will you do me one last service, and tell Mr. Wilson I’ve
been a fool, and I’m sorry I bothered him? Of course it was
suicide, tell him. He seemed a decent fellow, and perhaps he’ll
understand, and stop Lockwood kicking up a fuss. Anyway, I leave
it to you. I’m sorry to be a plague.

“SYLVIA.”

“Now what do you think of that?” said the lawyer. “Isn’t that just like a woman?”

“It seems to me just like Mrs. Meston, if I may say so,” said Wilson. “The authentic note.”

“Makes me look a fool,” said the lawyer testily. “First she makes a great fuss about her husband’s being murdered, and gives me no peace till I agree to go and consult you. Then she butts into the consultation without being asked, and drags you aside downstairs and won’t tell me what she’s said. And now she calmly asks me to call the whole thing off, and just remarks that she’s going away----”

“She’s gone,” Michael said. “She went last night. I told you.”

“Yes, but I didn’t grasp that she’d gone for ever,” Wilson said.

“Nor did I. The Squire didn’t say so. But she must have.”

“Then why on earth couldn’t she have written to me last night?” the lawyer demanded.

“Surely,” said Wilson, “the explanation’s obvious. She did not want to give you an opportunity of objecting.”

“Well, anyway, there it is. What do you make of it?”

“That was the question I was going to put to you. What do _you_ make of it?”

“I?” The lawyer stopped and gazed at him. “Oh, I don’t make anything. I suppose she means what she says----”

“Surely a dangerous assumption?”

“What do you mean?”

“It occurs to me that Mrs. Meston may have decided that for reasons of her own it now suits her better to regard her husband as _not_ having been murdered. I suspect the lady’s ideas of truth are, shall we say, a trifle pragmatic.”

“What suits her’s the truth, you mean. Oh, I dare say. All women are like that, more or less.”

“And Mrs. Meston, I should say, decidedly more.”

“Oh, have it your own way. But what the devil is one to believe?”

“In this matter, I should say, nothing whatever,” Wilson said. “Mrs. Meston, as a witness, cancels out. She has voted both ways. Are you going to take that letter to Colonel Lockwood, by the way?”

“I don’t know.” The lawyer looked up at him slyly. “Should you think it would have a good effect?”

“My dear sir,” Wilson said in his best manner, “Colonel Lockwood is a public servant. I hope--I think he will accord to that letter exactly the weight it deserves.”

“It’s open to everybody to hope, of course,” Brandreth said.

“Whether,” Wilson continued, “you choose to take the responsibility of holding back evidence from him is, of course, your own affair--though I may remind you that the matter is not now entirely in your keeping. By the way”--as Brandreth turned to go--“you didn’t by any chance mention to Mrs. Meston our meeting yesterday afternoon, did you?”

“I told her I’d seen you up-stream, of course,” Brandreth said innocently. “She was naturally anxious to hear how her investigation was getting on.”

“You will, I think, make my position somewhat difficult if you continue to dog my steps and publish bulletins of progress,” said Wilson.

“Dear, dear, I’m so sorry,” said the lawyer impenitently. “I didn’t know it was private--nor that police-officers were so sensitive to harmless gossip. I didn’t tell Sylvia you found her frock in the boathouse, though; I didn’t know that till afterwards.” And before Michael’s gasp of astonishment could translate itself into words, he was gone.