“Oh, well, as we don't know who the murderer was, or where he came from, he may just as well have been connected with Burford as anywhere else. Uncle James, who do you think killed Uncle Luke?”
“My dear boy!” The sudden question seemed to embarrass the rector. He took off his pince-nez and rubbed them, replacing them with fingers that visibly trembled. “How can we tell? How can any of us hazard an opinion? Heaven forbid that I should judge any man! The only idea I have formed on the subject can hardly be called original since I know it is shared by your Aunt Madeline, who has been voicing it much more vehemently than I should ever do.”
“Aunt Madeline!” Todmarsh looked up quickly. “What does she say? I have not seen her since the interrupted luncheon party. I have called, but she was out. But what can she know?”
“She does not know anything, of course.” The rector hesitated, his face looking troubled and disturbed. “But like myself, dear Aubrey, she was listening very intently to Mrs. Carnthwacke. I may say that my attention was fixed entirely on the lady; and it may be that my profession makes me particularly critical and observant. I dare say you have noticed that it does?”
“Naturally!” Todmarsh assented. But as he spoke the fingers of his right hand clenched themselves with a quick involuntary movement of impatience. Observant as Mr. Collyer had just proclaimed himself to be he did not notice how his nephew's fingers tightened until the knuckles shone white beneath the skin.
“Yes. We parsons so often have to form our own judgments on men and women quite independently of all external things,” the Rev. James Collyer prattled on, while only something in the restrained immobility of his nephew's attitude might have made a close observer guess at impatience resolutely held in check. “Therefore, as I said, I watched Mrs. Carnthwacke very closely, and I formed the opinion—the very strong opinion that, though she was undoubtedly speaking the truth as far as she went, she was not telling us the whole truth. So far I agree with your Aunt Madeline. But I feel sure that—I will not say she recognized the murderer, the man who was impersonating your Uncle Luke, but I think that she saw something that might give us a clue to him, put the police on his track. And in fact I know that this opinion is that of Mr. Steadman if not of the police. It is from Mrs. Carnthwacke that the identification of the murderer will come, I feel sure. Still, I may be wrong. You, my dear boy——”
A sharp cry from Todmarsh interrupted him. The penknife with which he had been sharpening a pencil had slipped, inflicting for so slight a thing quite a deep gash in his wrist. The blood spurted out.
His uncle looked at him aghast.
“My dear Aubrey! You must have cut an artery. What shall we do? A doctor——”
Todmarsh wrapped his handkerchief hurriedly round his wrist and tied it. He held one end out to the clergyman.