“It seems so,” observed Dick with a thoughtful frown, “don’t go after him, Alan. He will tell us all to-morrow, and you needn’t be afraid of his running away, since his revelations mean that he gets a share of the gems.”
“But we have to confront him with Jotty; and where is the boy?”
Dick shrugged his shoulders as they resumed their walk to Belstone. “Who knows? But even if he doesn’t appear Bakche won’t keep silent, for in that case he will lose his reward. Hum! I wonder if Jotty—as he infers—murdered Grison?”
“Well, Jotty is a greedy little beast, and admired the peacock. As he was a protégé of Grison and could run in and out of his room at will, it might be that he stole in when the man was sleeping and killed him. Bakche seems to hint at that. And then,” added Fuller, warming to his theme, “remember how Miss Grison took charge of the lad. Perhaps he gave her the peacock and the stiletto, which she took down to The Monastery to implicate Sorley and revenge herself on him.”
“She denied plainly enough that she took the bird to Belstone,” replied Latimer, shaking his head, “and if Jotty had the peacock she would have guessed that he had murdered her brother. Seeing how she loved the man she would not have condoned Jotty’s crime in any way. No, Alan, I don’t agree with your theory. Better wait and hear what Bakche has to say and then we can be certain. But the stiletto? I thought that was missing?”
“From Mother Slaig’s house,” said Alan quickly, “but Marie and I found it in the secret cupboard where Sorley keeps his own private collection of jewels. Either he is guilty, and concealed it there, or Jotty—who came to warn him—did so; or Miss Grison did in some way manage to get the weapon and hide it. But then her possession of it would certainly entail her knowing the truth, and she would not—as you said before—spare the murderer of the brother whom she loved so dearly.”
“Perhaps Bakche is guilty and is using Jotty as a screen,” suggested Dick with a shrug; “however it is no use speculating, Alan. What we have to do is to watch to-night in The Monastery in the hope that Sorley has returned there, and to-morrow hear what the Indian has to say.”
This was very good advice under the circumstances, and the young men took this very natural course. They arrived at the vicarage in time for dinner after calling at the big house to arrange with Granny Trent about sleeping there for the night. All the evening the vicar and his wife asked questions about the gems, and built castles in the air along with Marie as to the best use to be made of the money. Mention was made in the course of the evening by Mrs. Fuller that Miss Grison was staying with her dressmaker friend, and when Alan and Dick left to take up their quarters at The Monastery, they felt convinced that the woman had some idea of the whereabouts of her enemy.
“She’s on the watch,” said Fuller, as they walked to the big hole, “and if Sorley really has returned to hide, she will smell him out. I daresay he treated her and her brother badly, Dick, for Sorley is an utterly selfish creature, and perhaps deserves what he has endured. But what a vindictive person Miss Grison is.”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” quoted Latimer sententiously, “and since Sorley scorned his true wife by making love to another woman, and used her love for her brother to free himself, you can scarcely wonder that she hates him as the devil hates holy water. She would be more than human if she did not. I am sorry for Miss Grison, or rather, as we should call her, Mrs. Sorley.”