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Selwood and Peggie Wynne were just coming away from the telephone; they looked up at him with faces grave with concern. "We're wanted at the estate office," said Selwood. "The caretaker was just going to ring us up when I got through to him. Something is wrong wrong with Mr. Herapath." It struck Selwood, afterwards, as a significant thing that it was neither he nor Mr.
He presently followed the footman from the room, and Peggie, for the first time since Jacob Herapath's death, suddenly let her face relax and burst into a hearty laugh. That evening Triffitt got Burchill's address from Carver, and next day he drew a hundred pounds from the cashier of the Argus and went off to Calengrove Mansions. In his mind there was a clear and definite notion.
.... The man who was shot last week at the Gulch will be buried next Thursday. He is not yet dead, but his physician wishes to visit a mother-in-law at Lard Springs, and is therefore very anxious to get the case off his hands. The undertaker describes the patient as "the longest cuss in that section." Santa Peggie "Times." .... There is some dispute about land titles at Little Bilk Bar.
"There's one thought you mustn't permit yourself to harbour for a moment, my dear," he answered. "Don't even for a fraction of time allow yourself to think that my old friend took his own life! That's impossible." "I don't," said Peggie. "I never did think so. It is, as you say, impossible. I knew him too well to believe that. So, of course, it's " "Murder," assented Mr. Tertius. "Murder!
I should advise you to go on, and let us become acquainted with what you've got to tell us." "Barthorpe!" said Peggie, "I do not mind what pain you give me you can't give me much more than I've already been given this morning. But I wish" she turned appealingly to Mr. Halfpenny and again began to draw the sealed packet from her muff "I do wish, Mr. Halfpenny, you'd let me say something before "
He and Peggie stood breathlessly waiting in the hall that afternoon while Selwood was busy at the telephone in an adjacent lobby. Selwood came back to them nodding his head. "All right!" he said. "You and I, Professor, at her flat tonight, at nine o'clock."
This," he went on, picking up the telegram and placing it in his pocket, "this is the first step in that scheme. Well, it is perhaps a relief to know that he has taken it: we shall now know where we are and what has to be done." "Quite so," said Peggie. "But there is another matter, Mr. Tertius, which seems to be forgotten in this of the will.
We found Mr. Herapath lying across the hearthrug in his private room, quite dead. Close by " He paused and looked dubiously at Peggie. "The details are not pleasant," he said meaningly. "Shall I omit them?" "No!" answered Peggie with decision. "Please omit nothing. Tell us all." "There was a revolver lying close by Mr. Herapath's right hand," continued the inspector.
Peggie came in just then with a half a dozen cabinet photographs in her hand. One by one she exhibited them to the driver. "Do you recognize any of these?" she asked. The driver shook his head doubtingly until Peggie showed him a half-length of her uncle in outdoor costume. Then his eyes lighted up. "Couldn't swear as to the features, miss," he exclaimed.
After all, thought Selwood, as he went to Portman Square to tell Peggie of the afternoon's doings, whatever he did was being done for Peggie; moreover, he was by that time certain that however mean and base Barthorpe Herapath's conduct had been about the will, he was certainly not the murderer of his uncle.
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