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Updated: May 10, 2025
He wandered round the spacious library, glancing at the rows of books in their oaken shelves. Superintendent Merrington, while awaiting the arrival of Miss Heredith, drew forth the plan of the moat-house which Caldew had sketched, and studied it closely.
Merrington knew by wide experience how alternative theories weakened the case of circumstantial evidence, no matter how strong the presumption from the known facts appeared to be. A useful strand in circumstantial evidence is motive, and it was motive that Merrington sought to prove against Hazel Rath.
Merrington, stiff-necked in his officialism, had been unable to see this changed aspect of the case, and, strong in his presumption of the girl's guilt, had acted with impulsive indiscretion in going to see Nepcote before attempting to trace the missing necklace. Colwyn's reflections were interrupted by the appearance of the porter from downstairs to announce a visitor.
But she did not speak. "Have you nothing to say?" Merrington demanded. He had been a silent listener to many criminal confessions in his time, but in the unusual reversion of roles he was becoming unreasonably angry with the girl for not repaying his confidence with her own story.
"The motive was not robbery then," remarked Captain Stanhill. "It may have been," responded Merrington. "Caldew says the first intimation of the crime was the murdered woman screaming. The scream was followed in a few seconds by the revolver shot. If she screamed when she saw the murderer enter her room, he may well have feared interruption and capture, and bolted without stealing anything."
He does not think that Nepcote left the revolver behind him at the moat-house. He told Caldew this, but Caldew said the ownership of the revolver was a matter of no consequence." "Caldew's a fool if he said that, and I wish I'd never allowed him to meddle in the case," replied Merrington forcibly.
Merrington, who had breakfasted early and passed an arduous morning, replied bluntly that it could not be too soon to please him. "I'll have it served in the small breakfast-room in a quarter of an hour," said Mrs. Rath, hurrying away.
The girl had kept it, perhaps, because she was too shy to bestow it on the intended recipient, but its chief value in Merrington's eyes was the similarity between the written capital F and the same letter in the scratched inscription on the greenstone brooch. With these discoveries Merrington was satisfied.
I seem to remember now that it was warm, but I cannot be sure. I hardly knew what I was doing at the time." Her confusion was so evident that Merrington did not think it worth while to pursue the point. "If your story is true, why have you not told it before?" he said.
The latter, distrustful of the ability of the county police to bring such an atrocious murderer to Justice, had begged the help of Scotland Yard, with the result that Superintendent Merrington and his assistants appeared at the moat-house in the early morning before the astonished eyes of Caldew, who was taking a walk in the moat-house garden after a night of fruitless investigations.
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