"Who is the criminal?" asked Larcher, with a keen glance at his guardian.
Hilliston shuffled his feet uneasily, by no means relishing the directness of the question.
"That is a difficult question to answer," he said slowly; "in fact an impossible one. My suspicions point to Jeringham."
From this point Tait made a third in the conversation.
"That is because Jeringham disappeared on the night of the murder," he said leisurely.
"Yes. I think that circumstance alone is very suspicious."
"He was never found again?"
"Never. We advertised in all the papers; we employed detectives, inquired privately, but all to no result. The last person who saw Jeringham was Mrs. Larcher. He parted from her at the door of The Laurels, and vanished into the night. It still hides him."
"What do you conclude from that, sir?" asked Claude, after a pause.
"I can only conclude one thing," replied Hilliston, with great deliberation, "that your father, suspicious of Jeringham, returned on that night from London, and saw the parting. The result is not difficult to foresee. It is my own opinion that there were words between the men, possibly a struggle, and that the matter ended in the murder of your father by Jeringham. Hence the discovery of the body thrown into the river, hence the flight of the murderer."