"Committed suicide?" Mr. Flexen interrupted.
"Of course he committed suicide. Didn't Dr. Thornhill say that the wound might have been self-inflicted? Besides, poor Egbert had a most frightful temper."
"But why should he commit suicide?" said Mr. Flexen.
"He may have been upset about Lady Loudwater and Colonel Grey. Why, I'm quite sure that it would drive him mad—absolutely mad for the time being. I know him well enough to be sure of that."
"Yes—yes," said Mr. Flexen slowly. "It's a tenable theory, doubtless.
But about your quarrel with him."
"A few days before he died he talked about halving my allowance. And, of course, I was frightfully annoyed about it. I wanted to have it out with him—I meant to—but I knew that he'd never let me get near him, if he could help it. But I knew, too, that he sat in the smoking-room every evening after dinner, and generally went to sleep. You know everything about every one in the country, you know. And I determined to take him by surprise, and I did. We did have a row, for I was frightfully angry. It seemed so mean. But he stopped it by telling me that he had instructed his bankers—we have the same bankers—to pay twelve thousand pounds into my account instead of allowing me six hundred a year."
There was just the faintest change in her voice as she spoke the last sentence, and it did not escape Mr. Flexen's sensitive ear. He thought that the whole story had been rehearsed; it sounded so. But she spoke the last sentence just a little more quickly. The rest of the story rang true, or, at any rate, truer.
"Twelve thousand pounds," he said slowly. "And did Lord Loudwater tell you when he instructed his bankers?"
"No. But it must have been that very day. The letter must have been in the post, in fact, for two mornings later I received a letter from the bank telling me that they had credited me with that amount—the morning after the inquest, I think it was."
"I see," said Mr. Flexen, and he paused, considering the story. Then he said: "And were you surprised at all at his doing this?"