They assumed that Providence had decreed a violent death to Lord Fotheringay, in order to give the detective force an opportunity of displaying their ingenuity.
They had many interviews with Harold, and they asked him a number of questions regarding the life of his father, his associates, and his tastes.
They wondered if he had an enemy.
They feared that the deed was the work of an enemy; and they started the daring theory that if they only had a clue to this supposititious enemy they would be on the track of the assassin.
After about a week of suchlike theorizing, they were not quite so sure of Providence.
Some newspapers interested in the Ways of Providence, declared through the medium of leading articles, that Lord Fotheringay had been murdered in order that the world might be made aware of the utter incapacity of Scotland Yard, and the necessity for the reorganization of the detective force.
Other newspapers—they were mostly the organs of the Opposition—sneered at the Home Secretary.
Mr. Durdan was heard to affirm in the solitude of the smoking-room of his club, that the days of the Government were numbered.
Then Harold had also to receive daily visits from the family lawyers; and as family lawyers take more interest in the affairs of the family than any of its members, he found these visits very tiresome; only he was determined to find out what was his exact position financially, and to do so involved the examination of the contents of several tin boxes, as well as the columns of some bank books. On the whole, however, the result of his researches under the guidance of the lawyers was worth the trouble that they entailed.
He found that he would be compelled to live on an income of twelve thousand pounds a year, if he really wished—as he said he did—to make provision for the paying off of certain incumbrances, and of keeping in repair a certain mansion on the borders of a Welsh county.