"Threatened you!--the hound! What did he say?"
"He told me, if I did not give you up and marry him, he would get my father into trouble over Mr. Malet's murder."
"Does he suspect your father?"
"Yes, and no. He insists that father was cognizant of the murder, but I think he puts the actual deed down to the man with the crape scarf."
"That may be true. Remember what I found!"
"I remember. I also made a discovery," and Brenda told him how she had found the crape scarf burning in the grate of her father's study at Chippingholt, how her father had asserted that he was the man seen by Harold, and many other things. Indeed, she told him all she knew, including her conversations with Lady Jenny, with Wilfred, with Van Zwieten and with her father. Chin in hand, Harold listened attentively, putting in a word now and then. When she had finished, he looked utterly perplexed.
"It's all such a muddle I can't get at the rights of it," he said. "No one will speak out straight, and every one seems to have something to hide. Bad as Van Zwieten is, I don't believe he killed Malet. I don't see what motive he could have had."
"Unless, as Wilfred says, it were for political reasons."
"Oh, Wilfred's crazy about politics," replied Harold, testily. "He thinks of nothing else. It is a perfect mania with him. But Van Zwieten would not be such a fool as to risk his neck because Malet took up the cudgels against the Boers. No, Van Zwieten is innocent enough."
"What about Lady Jenny?"