"Just that!" A grim brusqueness had crept into the old baronet's voice. "And one of these days I propose to prove it!"
"But, sir"—the ex-captain of territorials in his amazement was still apparently groping out for his bearings—"in that case, the authorities—surely you—"
"They were very polite at Scotland Yard—very!" The old baronet smiled drily again. "That was the quarter to which I referred. Socially and criminologically—if I may be permitted the word—I fear that the Yard regards me from widely divergent angles. But damme, sir"—he became suddenly irascible—"they're too self-sufficient! I am a doddering and interfering old idiot! But nevertheless I am firmly convinced that I am right, and they haven't heard the end of the matter—if I have to devote every penny I've got to substantiating my theory and bringing the guilty man to justice!"
Captain Francis Newcombe coughed in an embarrassed way.
The old baronet reached for his tumbler, and drank generously. It appeared to soothe his feelings.
"Tut, tut!" he said self-chidingly. "I mean every word of that—that is, as to my determination to pursue my own investigations to the end; but perhaps I have not been wholly fair to the Yard. So far, I lack proof; I have only theory. And the Yard too has its theory. It is a very common disease. The theory of the Yard is that the man I believe to be guilty of these crimes of to-day died somewhere around the middle stages of the war."
"By Jove!" Captain Francis Newcombe leaned sharply forward on the arms of his chair. "You don't say!"
The old baronet wrinkled his brows, and was silent for a moment.
"It's quite extraordinary!" he said at last, with a puzzled smile. "I can't for the life of me understand how I got on this subject, for I think we were discussing democracy—but you appear to be interested."
"That is expressing it mildly," said the ex-captain of territorials earnestly. "You can't in common decency refuse me the rest of the story now, Sir Harris."