“. . . under the circumstances,” Mrs. Berlyn was saying, “but, of course, if Charles is taken we shall be accused of being his confederates.”
“Very possibly. But, Phyllis, what can we do? We know old Charles is innocent, though things look so badly against him. We can’t let him down. We must do what we can to help him and take the risk.”
“I know. I know. But isn’t the whole thing just awful! What have we done that we should get into such a position? It’s too much!”
Her voice, though carefully repressed, was full of suffering, and French could picture her wringing her hands and on the verge of tears. Pyke comforted her, though not at all in the tone of a lover, then went on:
“It’s time that we went back, old girl. Until I get the warning to Charles we mustn’t risk being seen together, therefore you’d better go on by yourself. I’ll follow in ten minutes.”
They bade each other an agitated farewell and then Mrs. Berlyn’s light footsteps sounded on the path. For another quarter of an hour Pyke remained among the trees, his presence revealed by occasional movements and by the whistling under his breath of a melancholy little tune. Then at last he also moved away and French was able to stretch his aching limbs. Carefully he followed his man back to the tube station and eventually to his rooms in Kepple Street.
He did not know what to make of the conversation to which he had just listened. The statements made were so surprising and unexpected that at first sight he was inclined to dismiss the whole thing as a blind, deliberately arranged to throw him off the scent. Then he saw that for several reasons this could not be. In the first place, Phyllis and Pyke did not know he was listening. In the second; such a plan would require careful prearrangement, and since his visit to Pyke the latter had had no opportunity of communicating with Phyllis Berlyn. Then there would be no object in such a scheme. They surely did not imagine that because of it French would relax his watch on them. Moreover, if it were false, its falseness would be demonstrated on the very next day. No, French felt the interview must be genuine.
And if so, what a completely new view it gave of the crime! Berlyn, Phyllis, and Jefferson Pyke all apparently mixed up in the affair and all innocent! Who, then, could be guilty? French had to own himself completely puzzled. If this view were correct, the murderer must be some one whom he had not yet seriously considered.
Unless it could be Domlio, after all. Nothing that the two had said directly precluded the possibility. Of course, in this case it was difficult to see why they should not denounce Domlio, if it would free themselves and Berlyn from suspicion. But then again, they might suspect Domlio, even perhaps be reasonably certain of his guilt, and yet unable to prove it.
French continued to turn the matter over in his mind, and the more he did so the more he leaned to the opinion that Domlio must be, after all, the murderer. All the arguments which had before led him to this conclusion recurred to him with redoubled force and the difficulties in the theory seemed more and more easily surmountable. Domlio’s motor drive on the night of the crime, his denial of the trip, the hiding of the clothes and duplicator parts in the well, his depressed and absorbed manner—these really were not accounted for by any theory other than that of the man’s guilt. And Domlio might easily have invented the story of the photograph and produced the letter to account for his nocturnal excursion.