CHAPTER XV
WHO killed Sir John Maxell and his wife?
Where had their bodies been hidden? These were the two questions which were to agitate England for the traditional space of nine days. For one day, at any rate, they formed the sole topic of speculation amongst the intelligent section of fifty million people.
The first question was easier to answer than the second. It was obvious to the newsmen that the murderer was Cartwright, whose threats of vengeance were recalled and whose appearance at Bournemouth had been described at second-hand by the detective in charge of the case. First-hand information was for the moment denied the pressmen, for Timothy, fully dressed, lay on his bed in a sound sleep. Happily for him, neither then nor later did any of the enterprising newspaper men associate the “A. C.” in his name with the wanted criminal. He was at least spared that embarrassment.
But the story of his vigil as “a friend of Sir John’s” was in print long before he woke up to find a small and impatient army of reporters waiting to interview him. He answered the reporters’ interrogations as briefly as possible, bathed and changed and made his way to the hotel where the girl was. She was leaving as he arrived, and the warmth of her greeting almost banished the depression which lay upon him. She put her arm through his so naturally that he did not realise his wonderful fortune.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, “unless you know already. All my money has gone.”
He stopped with a gasp.
“You don’t mean that?” he said seriously.
“It is true,” she replied. “I believe it was very little and my loss is so insignificant compared with the other awful affair that I am not worrying about it.”
“But Sir John had money?”