“Remember,” said Gerard, “we have no proof against him yet—of actual crime on his part. We only suspect. Now that’s not enough.”
“I don’t think myself,” said Edgar, who was less impetuous than his brother, “that you ever will get any proof. To me it seems absurd to think that a man in Candover’s position would be concerned with cheats and card-sharpers.”
“Well, then,” said Gerard, “that’s a very good reason why we should treat him civilly to begin with.”
“What makes you think he’ll come here at all?” asked Geoffrey, who could ask pertinent questions when he was in the mood.
“Well, if we’re wrong in believing that he’s the head of this gang, he won’t come,” said Gerard concisely. “There will be nothing to come about. But if, as I think, he is the head of it, he’ll be bound to turn up, to find out what we think about last night’s affair.”
“Then he won’t come,” said Edgar with decision.
“Now, I think he will,” said Geoffrey.
Gerard and Audrey remained silent on the point, and, with many injunctions to Gerard to take care of himself and to Geoffrey to take care of him, Audrey accompanied Edgar downstairs and out of the house.
Then Gerard and his cousin had a long conversation. Geoffrey, who was by far the more intelligent, if he was also the wilder, of Lord Clanfield’s two sons, was more and more inclined to share his cousin’s views as they discussed the whole matter from various points of view.
But he was also inclined to think that the man who had been concerned in the disappearance of the white lady might use other means than strategy, and again he deplored the absence of a revolver or other weapon in case Candover should show fight.