As usual, he received Brenda coldly, and wondered why she had not driven at once to her aunt's. She soon explained to him her reasons.
"Father, I am worrying myself to death about that man with the crape scarf."
Scarse colored and averted his eyes. "Why, pray?" he asked.
"Because I can't get over his resemblance to you. Is he a relative?"
"No." Scarse cleared his throat and spoke. "The fact is, Brenda, I wore that crape scarf and snuff-colored coat myself. I am the man Harold saw."
[CHAPTER VII.]
AUNT JUDY.
For a while Brenda did not grasp the full significance of her father's admission. She stared at him blankly. Then the recollection of that morsel of crape in the dead man's hand, and all that it meant, came upon her with overwhelming force. She could not cry, but a choking sensation came at her throat. Her father was the man who had worn the crape scarf--then her father was the man who had murdered Gilbert Malet!
"What is it, Brenda? Why do you look at me like that?" he asked nervously.
He stood beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp on the table, and she could not see his face, but by the tremor of his voice she guessed that he was badly frightened. She pulled herself together--what the effort cost her no one but herself knew--and came at once to the gist of the thing.