“Don’t say that, mother.  Juliet is an angel!”

“Then she can’t be her mother’s daughter,” said Mrs. Mallow obscurely, and finished the discussion in what she considered to be a triumphant manner.  Nor would she renew it, though her son tried to learn more about the Loach and Saul families.  However, he was satisfied with the knowledge he had acquired.

While returning next day to London, he had ample time to think over what he had been told.  Miss Selina Loach had certainly shut herself up for many years in Rose Cottage, and it seemed as though she was afraid of being hurt in some way.  Perhaps she even anticipated a violent death.  And then Mrs. Octagon hinted that she knew who had killed her sister.  It might not have been Caranby after all, whom she meant, but one of the Saul family, as Mrs. Mallow suggested.

“I wonder if it is as my mother thinks,” mused Cuthbert, staring out of the window at the panorama of the landscape moving swiftly past.  “Perhaps Selina did kill Miss Saul, and shut herself up to avoid being murdered by one of the relatives.  Caranby said that Selina did not go to the inquest, but pretended she was ill.  Then she and her sister went to the continent for two years, and finally, when they returned, Selina instead of taking her proper place in society as Isabella did, shut herself up as a recluse in Rose Cottage.  The Saul family appear to have been a bad lot.  I should like to look up that coining case.  I wonder if I dare tell Jennings.”

He was doubtful of the wisdom of doing this.  If he told what he knew, and set Jennings on the track, it might be that a scandal would arise implicating Mrs. Octagon.  Not that Cuthbert cared much for her, but she was Juliet’s mother, and he wanted to avert any trouble likely to cause the girl pain.  A dozen times on the journey Cuthbert altered his mind.  First he thought he would tell Jennings, then he decided to hold his peace.  This indecision was not like him, but the case was so perplexing, and such serious issues were involved, that the young man felt thoroughly worried.

Hitherto he had seen nothing new about the case in the papers, but on reaching Swindon he bought a few and looked through them.  His search was rewarded by finding an article on the crime.  The inquest had been held, and the jury had brought in a verdict of “Murder against some person or persons unknown!” But it was plainly stated that the police could not find a clue to the assassin.  The article in question did not pretend to solve the mystery, but collocated the facts so as to put the case in a nutshell.