"Oh!" Cyril clenched his hand and grew pale. "Do you not think that I would give the world to believe him innocent? I love Miss Huxham, and this murder by my father places a barrier between us. If you knew all"—here Cyril broke off hastily, as he remembered that he was speaking to a black man. Already he regretted that he had said so much, but he had been carried away by the tide of his emotion. "The matter stands like this," he said, abruptly changing the subject. "My father has killed Captain Huxham, and has disappeared with one hundred pounds."
"But I thought that Mr. Pence——" began Bella, only to be interrupted.
"He is innocent," said Cyril hastily. "On the face of it, he is innocent. I go by the evidence of the knife from Nigeria, where Pence has never been, and by the fact that you saw my father, whom you mistook for me, enter the Manor about the time the crime was committed."
"I dare say you are right," said Bella vaguely, and regretted that she had so hastily condemned the preacher. After all, the truth of the legacy left by his aunt was not a fiction. "But what will you do now?"
"I ask the same question," remarked Durgo, sharply. "We are no nearer the truth than we have been."
Cyril looked in astonishment at the negro who spoke such excellent English, and so much to the point. Durgo, undoubtedly, in intellect was equal to, if not superior to, many Englishmen, and Lister saw in him a helpful coadjutor in solving the mystery. "We must work together to learn the whereabouts of my father," he said wearily, passing his hand across his forehead. "It will be necessary to get him out of the country, if what we believe is correct. But it may be, that my father has crossed the Channel."
"If that is so, he will write to me," commented the negro; he paused, and then asked abruptly, "If you learn that your father is guilty?"
"I shall do my best to get him away from England. Why do you ask?"
Durgo turned away, after a piercing glance. "I thought, from what you hinted, that you would not be sorry to see your father hanged."
"Don't talk rubbish, man," said Lister sharply. "My father is my father, when all is said and done. I only trust that we are mistaken, and that he is not guilty of this brutal crime."