"Not that I ever heard of. She told me very little about herself, and what I know I had to drag out of her. She came five years ago and took this cottage by herself. Afterwards her husband, as she called him, came. I never saw him, and she always paid her rent regularly. That's all I know."
"Why do you think Mr. Brand was not her husband?"
"I never said he wasn't. I don't know. She seemed a respectable person, and was very quiet in her living and dress. Sometimes she shut up the cottage and went away for a week."
"Always for a week?"
"Yes. She never was absent long. I suppose she and her husband had a jaunt all to themselves. She had no children. But ain't you going to look at the rest of the house?"
"Yes." Derrick cast his eyes round the room again. On the round white wood table was a photograph album bound in white leather. He opened this, and found that all the portraits therein--the book was only half full--were those of women. Several were of Mrs. Brand as child and girl and woman. Spaces showed that five or six portraits had been removed. Derrick noted this, and then left the drawing-room thoughtfully. It seemed to him as though all the male portraits had been removed on purpose. And the chances were that in an album belonging to the wife, portraits of the husband might be found. At the door of the white room he cast his eyes on the ground. "Has it been raining?" he asked.
Webb, who was already in the passage, came back, and stared at the footmarks--muddy footmarks which were printed on the white carpet. "It's not been raining for over a week," he said. "Strange that there should be this mess. Mrs. Brand was always a particularly tidy woman. She never let a spot of dirt remain in this room."
"We've had a dry summer," said Derrick, pinching his lip.
"Very dry," assented Webb. "To be sure, there was that big thunderstorm eight days ago."
"And before that we had three weeks of sunshine."