Gwendolen sighed. She had not failed to observe the fact, but she could throw no light upon the reason of it. Ralph resembled Sir Geoffrey in being very taciturn where his private feelings were concerned; she remembered the day when Sir Geoffrey said he had a bone to pick with Ralph. The discussion ended satisfactorily, but she connected the slight trouble in some way with Melville, who, as she afterwards learned, had seen his uncle the previous night, and Ralph's championship of his brother's cause had been discontinued from that time; since then, indeed, he never talked about him. It was all very puzzling and sad.
In the meantime, Melville forsook the neighbourhood. He accepted Mrs. Austen's hospitality for a couple of nights, and then, frankly confessing that the proximity of the Manor House with its associations was intolerable to him in his present frame of mind, returned to London, outwardly calm enough, but inwardly consumed by a raging fire of evil passions. As he paced his chambers, secure from prying eyes, hate and fear, chagrin and lust for revenge swept across his pallid face, and sometimes, as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, he thought the whole world must be able to read his secret in the careworn lines, which in reality it ascribed to laudable grief and natural disappointment. It is a kind-hearted place, this same world of ours, provided its patience and generosity are not unduly taxed, and just now it laid itself out to make things easier for Melville. He accepted the proffered sympathy gratefully, and won a new sort of popularity by his quiet pluck and his gentle air of resignation. Old people thought he was chastened by his trouble; young ones thought he was to be pitied; and Melville made the most of this occasion to make new friends among the children of this world.
But he did not forget his vow that Ralph should live to be sorry for having contributed, however indirectly, to his disinheritance, and wherever he went he sowed scandal with both hands. It is an invisible seed, of which the fruit is more deadly than the upas tree, and in sowing it as he did it is possible that Melville himself had no idea of what the harvest would be. Society knew little of Sir Geoffrey, who lived a comparatively retired life in his fine old Surrey home, but the mystery attaching to the unknown Lady Holt tickled its palate, and the murder of a man who was one of its order was not lightly to be forgotten. Thus at many a dinner party, where the subject was delicately broached, and at many a little luncheon in the clubs, where the conversation veered upon the question of undetected criminals, remarks were made—no one could afterwards precisely say by whom—which went to direct the general suspicion towards one point.
"What is the good of all this parrot-talk about motives," he said on one occasion. "When once you set to work imputing motives you need never stop. Anybody can tell you that half the murders in the world are due to drink or jealousy. Neither comes into this case. And England isn't like Sicily or Corsica, where vendetta is an institution. Sir Geoffrey could not have had an enemy in the world, so you may rule out revenge as well."
"How about the lady?" someone suggested, but Melville disposed of the idea.
"She can't have got her knife into him, or she would not have lain so low all these years. Besides, it looks as if Sir Geoffrey believed her to be dead, for he made some funny arrangements about her annuity. Anyhow, all that is pretty certain to come to light, for I believe there is a big reward offered to anyone who will produce her. No; I don't see much use in fooling after motives."
That was as far as he allowed himself to go then, but elsewhere, and to another audience, he took a different line and seemed interested in hearing the general opinion on this same subject of motives. He sat silent until the end of the conversation, when he appeared disinclined to endorse the verdict of the rest.
"It's too jolly dangerous," he said gravely, "to go about suggesting people who might commit a crime, and then inventing reasons why they should do it. It's very easy to vary the amusement, until you begin to believe you have found the motive and the man by a process of exhaustion. Why, Sir Geoffrey once told me he had made no will; is there sufficient motive there for me to kill him so that I might benefit under an intestacy? On the other hand, my brother knew he had made one, though I don't suppose he knew its tenour. Is there sufficient motive there for him to kill the old man on the chance of coming in? The thing is absurd on the face of it. We were both dependent on him, and I venture to say that no two fellows were ever fonder of their father than we were of our uncle."
It was not often he was as precise as that. For the most part he contented himself with the vaguest remarks, all harmless individually, but totalling up to an incredible strength when put together by skilful brains; and skilful brains were doing it, brains owned by men who, in spite of all detractors, are marvellously shrewd, and who do not often have to confess themselves beaten in the end, although they may sometimes take a long time upon the journey, and even make errors by the way. Whose business it was to gather these rumours and carry them to the detectives engaged upon the case, it matters not to enquire; popular opinion is no evidence, but it is often useful as indicating where evidence may be found, and, Melville's expressed opinion notwithstanding, all lawyers attach importance to motive in arguing for or against the criminality of individuals. At any rate, they agreed in the advisability of making an arrest upon suspicion, and their selection of the individual was partly influenced by some of these random and irresponsible remarks.
The Manor House was looking its best in the mellow light of an ideal summer evening. It had been one of those days when it is impossible not to feel delight in life, and Ralph awoke to full consciousness of the fact that he had youth and love and wealth to comfort himself withal. He spent the morning at The Grange, and after luncheon punted Gwendolen up the river, arranging for Mrs. Austen to join them at the Manor House. There was no flaw in his happiness that day, and, perhaps because of the violent contrast between its morning and its night, it always stood out afterwards with particular distinctness in his memory. Returning from Longbridge, he put on his evening clothes and went to The Grange to fetch Gwendolen and her mother; they strolled leisurely down to the Manor House and lingered over dinner, discussing idly many little plans for alterations to be made in the old place for the fuller satisfaction of its new mistress.