Audrey leant back and looked at her lover. "I have no reason to love my father, as you know," she said dully. "He has always been unkind to me, and he was unkind to my poor mother; but I can't think that he killed her."
"The evidence is slight, I admit," replied Ralph, gravely; "and perhaps it is evidence that would not stand in a court of law. All the same, to my mind, it certainly lays Sir Joseph open to suspicion."
"Parizade might have mistaken the smell?"
"No. Being blind, she has particularly keen olfactory nerves--her sense of smell is almost as highly developed as that of a dog. And the perfume of Harris tweed--if it can be called a perfume--that peaty smell, I mean--is so strong and so characteristic that even an ordinary person could guess that,--"
"Other people besides my father wear Harris tweed suits," interrupted Audrey, trying to find excuses.
"Quite so. Ladies wear tailor-made dresses of it and men wear suits. But as a rule that particular kind of cloth is mostly worn by those who shoot, and is worn as a rule in the country. It is rarely that one sees it in London--at all events amongst people of your father's class."
"Yes," admitted Audrey, "father is always particular about his dress. He goes to the City in a frock-coat and a silk hat, and invariably dresses for dinner. In fact, he does what most people in Society do in the way of dress. But remember that I told you how he went on the prowl."
"Which people in Society do not do, as a rule," said Ralph. "Quite so, my dear. But why I suspect your father is that he has quite a craze for Harris tweed, and once or twice told me that for ordinary suits he wears no other cloth. Besides, he certainly wants to marry Miss Pearl, and--"
"Yes, yes, yes! I quite understand, and I admit that he might have been lurking in the passage on that night. Certainly he was in Walpole Lane during the evening."
"How do you know?" demanded Shawe, rather startled.