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It might amuse me, Farnham had thought, as Wildred's house up the river was a queer old place, interesting to anyone who cared for that sort of thing, and they two were dining quite alone. Wildred and he had had some final arrangements to settle up, and as Christmas was such an "off day," so far as amusements were concerned, it had been Wildred's idea that they should utilise it in this manner.
Things had evidently been put into train early, I told myself with satisfaction, and I concluded that the despatch had either gone out from police headquarters or been sent by that stealthy-faced, invaluable major-domo of Wildred's.
This man, disguised as Farnham, was in Wildred's pay, there could be no doubt of that, and had in all probability been engaged for the purpose he was now carrying out before the murder had taken place. I tried as I walked to put myself in the place of the schemers, and thus hew out, through an intimate mental process, some idea as to how the loose ends of the mystery were to be disposed of.
When at last he had induced the "powers that be" to grant a warrant for Wildred's arrest on suspicion of having murdered Harvey Farnham, and to send a couple of men to the House by the Lock, where my telegram had announced that he was probably to be found, it was too late to catch anything save the ten o'clock train.
And yet if I stayed, what was there to hope for either of us? I had shot all my arrows, and they had glanced off, blunted, from Wildred's apparently invulnerable armour. I had lost the chance of gaining assistance from the police, so far as I could see, and unless some miracle should suddenly come to pass, I should be obliged to stand by while Karine Cunningham gave her unwilling self to Wildred.
There is a small room, reached by mounting a winding skeleton stairway of iron, and there we were shown Mr. Wildred's apparatus. I know something of chemistry myself, having had a fad that way when I was a boy, and I could see that everything he had was straight and above-board. A big fireplace in the room accounts for the sparks you saw when you approached the house that day, and Mr.
Wildred's domestic economies, but still bent on unearthing an electric bell if I could do so, when my eyes fell upon the partially-covered picture. It was but a pinky-white, uncovered shoulder that I could see, with a glimpse of red-gold hair at such a distance above as to suggest a massive knot at the back of a woman's head, seen in profile.
He was the one who could tell of the plot by which he had personated Farnham in America, by Wildred's desire, and in the hope of obtaining a substantial bribe.
Carson Wildred had a peculiarly flat nose; Willis Collins had had a particularly high one. Carson Wildred's hair was inky black; Willis Collins's had been a bright auburn. Wildred's face was smooth; Collins's mouth and chin had been concealed by a heavy though close-cropped red beard.
"He was unable to identify it, but he spoke to having seen something in the neighbourhood of the small backwater not far from his house, just before Christmas, which seemed likely to throw light on the matter. The surgeon's idea is, as I think I forgot to mention, sir, that the body had been in the water since Christmas time, or thereabouts, which made Mr. Wildred's supposition the more feasible.
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