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Caldew finished his inquiries by midday. By that time most of the guests had departed from the moat-house and were on their way to London. Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill were in the library examining the servants. Sergeant Lumbe had gone by train to Tibblestone to sift the story of the suspicious stranger who had descended on that remote village during the previous night.
"Scotland Yard will trace the necklace fast enough," he confidently declared. "I like to take things in their proper order. The next thing to do is to ascertain whether Nepcote left his revolver behind him at the moat-house, though I have not the least doubt that he did. The necklace is really a minor consideration. It merely provides another motive for the murder cupidity as well as jealousy."
Weyne?" he asked. "They were not in," was the reply. "I was told they had motored to the moat-house. Did you see them?" Superintendent Merrington frowned. He had not seen the Weynes, and he had not been informed of their visit. It was another addition to the sum of untoward incidents which had happened to him since his arrival at the moat-house, and he felt very dissatisfied and wrathful.
I have read the newspaper accounts, but they necessarily lack those more intimate details which may mean so much. I should like to hear everything from beginning to end." In a voice which was still weak from illness, Phil did as he was requested, and related the strange sequence of events which had happened at the moat-house on the night of his wife's murder.
Philip Heredith, who was as great a fighter as his Norman ancestor, established his claim to his new estate, and avoided litigation concerning it, by confining the Royalist owner and his family within the walls of the moat-house before setting it on fire. He afterwards married and settled down in the new house with his young wife.
"Why did you allow so long a time to elapse between this visit and the last one when you had previously been in the habit of seeing your mother nearly every week?" Hazel again hesitated, as though at a loss for a reply. "I have been so busy," she murmured at length. "Is this your first visit to the moat-house since Mrs. Heredith came here to live?" "Yes."
A wanted man can walk along them at night right under the nose of the police without fear of being seen." "Have you made any fresh discoveries about the case?" "We have ascertained that a man who may have been Nepcote was seen near the moat-house on the night of the murder." Colwyn nodded indifferently.
He had recently returned to England after a year's wanderings in the southern hemisphere, and had arrived at the moat-house on the previous day, bringing with him a dried alligator's head with gaping jaws, a collection of rare stuffed birds and snakeskins for Phil, who had a taste in that direction, and a carved tiki god for Miss Heredith.
"I have no doubt now that I must have left it behind me at the moat-house," responded Nepcote. "I was recalled to France and went away in a hurry. God forgive me for my carelessness. To think that it resulted in this terrible murder!" His face had gone suddenly white. "Did you return to France that night?" asked Merrington carelessly. "As a matter of fact, I did not.
He could not explain his lying telegrams, his secret return, his presence in the moat-house, his possession of the necklace, the revolver in the bedroom where the body was. Therefore, it was only necessary to give you a starting point, because discovery was inevitable where so much was hidden. I saw to it that the loss of the necklace was discovered after your arrival.
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