"Then why can't you defend yourself, if necessary, on that score?"
"I'll answer that question by asking you another? Who am I?"
Vane stared and looked wholly bewildered. "Owain Hench!"
"So I thought. Now I learn from Gilberry & Gilberry that I am Owain Evans."
"What?" Vane uttered the ejaculation in as astonished a tone as Hench had done in the solicitor's office. "Are you a relative of the dead man?"
"Yes. I am his nephew."
"Well, the unexpected is always happening," commented Vane, after a pause of sheer surprise. "But even so, as you did not know your uncle and never met him, you can still say, if necessary, that you had no motive to murder him."
"I can't." Owain rose and began to pace the room. "I can't; and that's the worst of it, Jim. As you say, I did not know him and I never met him, but evil tongues might give me the lie, seeing what I stood to gain."
"What did you stand to gain?"
"Ten thousand a year."