“Thankfully I would go,” he answered.  “Most thankfully I would avoid what is hanging over my head.  It was terrible enough when your dear husband died; but now we shall be the centre of interest to half England.  Every instinct cries to me to get out of it, but obviously that is impossible, even were I permitted to do so.  It is the duty of the police to suspect every man and woman under my roof—­myself with the rest.  These appalling things have occurred in my home, and I must bear the brunt of them and stand up to all that they mean.  No Lennox ever ran from his duty, however painful it might be.  The death of this man—­so eminent in his calling—­ will attract tremendous attention and be, as you say, a sort of direct challenge to the authorities for whom he worked.  They will resent this second tragedy, and with good reason.  The poor man, though I cannot pretend that I admired him, was a force for good in the world, and his peculiar genius was devoted to the detection of crime and punishment of criminals—­a very worthy occupation, however painful to our ideas.”

They sat in the library now, and Henry Lennox spoke to his uncle, with his eye on the window, waiting for the sight of the doctor’s car.

“They’ll want to tear the place down, very likely.  They’ll certainly have no mercy on the stones and mortar, any more than they will on us.”

“They can spare themselves that trouble, and you your fears,” declared Septimus May, who had joined them.  “It is impossible that they will be here until to-morrow.  Meantime—­”

“It is easy to see what they will do,” proceeded young Lennox, “and what they will think also.  Nor can we prevent them, even if we wanted to.  I image their theory will be this.  They will suppose that Mr. Hardcastle, left in that room alone, was actually on the track of those responsible for Tom’s death.  They will guess that, in some way, or by some accident, he surprised the author of the tragedy, and the assassin, seeing his danger, resorted to the same unknown means of murder as before.  They may imagine some hidden lunatic concealed here, whose presence is only known to some of us.  They may suspect a homicidal maniac in me, or my uncle, or Masters, or anybody.  Certainly they will seek a natural explanation and flout the idea of any other.”

The clergyman protested, but Henry was not prepared to traverse the old ground again.

“I have as much right to my opinions as you to yours,” he said.  “And I am positive this is man’s work.”

Then Mary announced that Mannering’s car was in sight.  The library windows opened on the western side of the house and afforded a view of the main drive, along which the doctor’s little hooded car came flying, like a dead leaf in a storm.  But it was not alone.  A hospital motor ambulance followed behind it.

They soon learned of curious things, and the house was first thrown into a great bustle and then restored to peace.