“Because I was living extravagantly.  Not only that, but he disapproved of my manner of life.  In those days I was headstrong and wilful.  I loved a Bohemian existence combined with absurd luxury, or rather, a wildly useless expenditure of money.  No one who knows me now could picture me then.  Yet now I am good and unhappy.  Then I was wicked, in some people’s eyes, and happy.  Strange, is it not?”

“Not altogether so unusual as you may think.  Was any other person interested in what I may term the result of the dispute between your brother and yourself?”

“That is a difficult question to answer.  I was very careless in money matters, but it is clear that the curtailment of my rate of living from L15,000 to L5,000 per annum must make considerable difference to all connected with me.”

“Had you been living at the former rate?”

“Yes, since my father’s death.  What annoyed Alan was the fact that I had borrowed from money-lenders.”

“Who else knew of your disagreement with him besides these money-lenders and his solicitors?”

“All my friends.  I used to laugh at his serious ways, when I, older and much more experienced in some respects, treated life as a tiresome joke.  But none of my friends were commissioned to murder my brother so that I might obtain the estate, Mr. Brett.”

“Not by you,” he said thoughtfully.

He knew well that to endeavour to get Margaret to implicate her husband would merely render her an active opponent.  She loved this Italian scamp.  She was profoundly thankful that David Hume had come back to claim the hand of Helen Layton, the woman who had been the unwilling object of Capella’s wayward affections.  She would be only too glad to give half her property to the young couple if they would settle in New Zealand or Peru—­far from Beechcroft.

Yet it was impossible to believe that she could love a man whom she suspected of murdering her brother.  Why, then, had husband and wife drifted apart?  Assuredly the pieces of the puzzle were inextricably mixed.

“Where did you marry Mr. Capella?” asked Brett suddenly.

“At Naples—­a civil ceremony, before the Mayor, and registered by the British Consul.”

“Had you been long acquainted”

“I met him, oddly enough, in Covent Garden Theatre, the night my brother was killed”

It was now Brett’s turn to be startled.

“Are you quite certain of this ?” he asked, his surprise at the turn taken by the conversation almost throwing him off his guard.

“Positive.  Were you led to believe that Giovanni was the murderer?”

Her voice was cold, impassive, marvellously under control.  It warned him, threw him back into the safe role of Hume’s adviser and friend.

“I am led to believe nothing at present,” he said slowly.  “This inquiry is, as yet, only twenty-four hours old so far as I am concerned.  I am seeking information.  When I am gorged with facts I proceed to digest them.”