"My full name is Horace Agstone," explained the doctor bluntly, "but as I got on in life and rose in the world I dropped the last and kept to the first. Steve is my elder brother by one year, and we are the sons of a Suffolk labourer. I had the brains of the family, and in one way and another managed to cultivate those same brains, with the result—no very great one—you see. Steve went to sea, and we did not meet for years and years. When he returned to England with old Lanwin he went down to Suffolk to look up the family. Our parents were dead and buried, but Steve learned my name and address from the vicar. He came to look me up, but as we did not hit it off very well, we considered it best to live our lives apart, as formerly. That's all."
Prelice threw his cigarette out of the cab, and stared at the horse in a meditative way. "Strange that you should be connected with this case also," he remarked dreamily.
The doctor grew red, and looked fierce. "What the devil do you mean by that? I have nothing to do with the case."
"Your brother——"
"I have nothing to do with my brother. He and I were born of the same mother, but beyond that we are—I mean we were, seeing he is dead—nothing to one another. If he chooses to kill people and be killed, that is his affair. No one can connect Steve Agstone with Dr. Horace, save the vicar of Burfield in Suffolk, unless you betray me. Not that I care, mark you, Prelice. I learned that fable of the old man and his ass very early in life, and never trouble about people and their opinions."
"I don't intend to betray you," said Prelice coldly, but flushing all over his freckled face; "you can be brother to Satan for all I care. Moreover, I have given confidence for confidence. If I know about your relation to Agstone, you know about the knife's evidence, which I and Shepworth suppressed."
"Right! Right! Don't get your hair off," said Horace, gripping his companion's knee in a painful manner. "You and I are chums of the Wild, old son, and those of that breed don't go back on one another." He released Prelice's knee, and leaned back, thoughtfully. "Of course, it was a shock for me to learn of Agstone's death."
"Didn't you see it in the morning papers?"
"No. I have more to do than to read riff-raff rubbish. You were the first to inform me. Well!" Horace leaned his arms on the splash-board calmly, "Steve's gone to see father and mother on the Astral Plane. I expect he will quarrel with them as usual. They never got on together."
Prelice suppressed a smile at this odd, unchristian way of viewing death, and nodded. "I quite understand why you don't believe Agstone to be guilty!" he remarked after a pause.