“Exactly.  Nellie at first hardly realised its significance.  Then she hastily told Capella to take it away, but not before she noticed that he seemed to understand the dreadful thing.  It is fastened in its sheath by a hidden spring, and he knew exactly how to open it.  Any person not accustomed to such weapons would endeavour to pull it out by main force.”

Brett did not press Mrs. Eastham to pursue her theory.  It was plain that she regarded the Italian as a man who might conceivably be the murderer of his wife’s brother.  This was enough for feminine logic.

Hume, too, shared the same belief, and had not scrupled to express it openly.

There were, it was true, reasons in plenty, why Capella should have committed this terrible deed.  He was, presumably, affianced to Margaret at the time.  Apparently her father’s will had contemplated the cutting down of her annual allowance.  The young heir had, on the other hand, made up the deficit.  But why did these artificial restrictions exist?  Why were precautions taken by the father to diminish his daughter’s income?  She had been extravagant.  Both father and brother quarrelled with her on this point.  Indeed, there was a slight family disturbance with reference to it during Sir Alan’s last visit to London.  Was Capella mixed up with it?

At last there was a glimmering perception of motive for an otherwise fiendishly irrational act.  Did it tend to incriminate the Italian?

A summons to luncheon dispelled the momentary gloom of their thoughts.  Before the meal ended Miss Layton joined them.

Brett looked at his watch.  “Fifty minutes!” he said.

Then they all laughed, except Mrs. Eastham, who marvelled at the coolness of the meeting between the girl and David.  But the old lady was quick-witted.

“Have you met before?” she cried.

“Dearest,” said the girl, kissing her; “do you mean to say they have not told you what happened in the park?”

“That will require a special sitting,” said Brett gaily.  “Meanwhile, I am going to the Hall.  I suppose you do not care to accompany me, Hume?”

“I do not.”

The reply was so emphatic that it created further merriment.

“Well, tell me quickly what this new secret is,” exclaimed Mrs. Eastham, “because in five minutes I must have a long talk with my cook.  She has to prepare pies and pastry sufficient to feed nearly a hundred school children next Monday, and it is a matter of much calculation.”

Brett took his leave.

“I knew that good old soul would be tactful,” he said to himself.  “Now I wonder how Winter made such a colossal mistake as to imagine that Hume murdered his cousin.  He was sure of the affections of a delightful girl; he could not succeed to the property; he has declined to take up the title.  What reason could he have for committing such a crime?”

Then a man walked up the road—­a man dressed like a farmer or grazier, rotund, strongly-built, cheerful-looking.  He halted opposite Mrs. Eastham’s house, where the barrister still stood drawing on his gloves on the doorstep.