“Do you think Berlyn could have been jealous of your cousin?”
“I’m sure he could not, Inspector. Don’t get that bee into your bonnet. Stanley certainly went often to the house, but Berlyn was always friendly to him. I don’t for a moment believe there was anything to be jealous about.”
“There was enough intimacy for them to be talked about.”
“In Ashburton!” Pyke retorted, scornfully. “In a little one-horse place like that they’d talk no matter what you did.”
“It was believed that there was something between them until about four months before the tragedy, then for some unknown reason the affair stopped.”
“That so?” Pyke retorted. “Well, if it stopped four months before the tragedy it couldn’t have caused it.”
“Do you know where Mrs. Berlyn is now?”
“Yes, in London; at 70b Park Walk, Chelsea, to be exact.”
French continued his questions, but without learning anything further of interest, and after cautioning Pyke to keep his own counsel, he took his leave.
So he had reached certainty at last! The body was Stanley Pyke’s. He had admittedly made four ghastly blunders in his test points and these he must now try to retrieve. There was also a reasonable suspicion that Charles Berlyn was the murderer. Splendid! He was getting on. As he went down to the Yard he felt he had some good work behind him to report.