“Am I to understand that you have no further light on the crime beyond what you gained when the bodies were found?”
“Hardly that, Mr. Woodman. I have at least had time to think things over, and to conduct a few additional investigations. But I shall know better what to make of these when I have asked you a few questions.”
“Ask away; but I shall probably be able to answer more to your satisfaction if you tell me how matters stand. I think I may say that I know thoroughly both Sir Vernon’s and the late Mr. Prinsep’s affairs.”
“Well, you know, Mr. Woodman, the prima facie evidence in both cases seemed to point to a quite impossible conclusion. In each case, what evidence there was went to show that the two men had murdered each other. This could not be true of both; but we have so far no evidence to show whether it ought to be disbelieved in both cases, or only in one. That is where further particulars may prove so important.”
“I will tell you all I can.”
“Let us begin with Mr. Prinsep. Was he in any trouble that you know of?”
The lawyer hesitated. “Well,” he said at length, “it is a private matter, and I am sure it can have no bearing on the case. But you had better have all the facts. There had been some trouble—about a woman, a girl who is acting in a small part at the Piccadilly Theatre.”
“Her name?”
“Charis Lang. Prinsep had been, well, I believe somewhat intimate with her, and she had formed the opinion that he had promised to marry her. He came to see me about it. He denied that he had made any such promise, and said he was anxious to get the matter honourably settled. I wrote to the woman and asked her to meet me; but she refused—said it was not a lawyer’s business, but entirely a private question between her and Mr. Prinsep. I showed him her letter, and he was very much worried. He informed me that Mrs. George Brooklyn—she used to be leading lady at the Piccadilly—had known the girl in her professional days, and I approached her and told her a part of the story. She took, I must say, the girl’s side, and said she was sure a promise of marriage had been made. She wanted to take the matter up; but George Brooklyn objected to his wife being mixed up in it, and undertook to see Miss Lang himself. He was to have done so two nights ago—the night of the murders—and then to have gone back to tell Prinsep what had happened. I have no means of knowing whether he actually did so.”
“This is very important. Can you give me Miss Lang’s address?”