“Bedlington!” John ejaculated.
“It was always a possibility, you know, though I admit it seemed unlikely. It was not until I had had leisure to consider the matter more particularly that I realized how very much more unlikely was my first really rather foolish suggestion. It could never have been Francis, of course.”
“I do not know what you mean! To suspect a man in old Bedlington’s position rather than his son seems to me fantastic!”
“No, I don’t think so,” Carlyon replied. “If Francis, who was De Castres’s close friend, had been the traitor, what possible need could there have been to have employed Eustace as the go-between? No go-between would have been necessary. That such a tool as Eustace was employed should have shown me clearly from the start that the man we were trying to discover must be someone who was anxious not to be known by the French agent with whom he was dealing. Then too, in using Eustace—hardly an ideal choice, surely!—he betrayed a clumsiness that could have nothing to do with Francis.”
John was silent for a moment, turning it over in his mind. “It is true!” he said at last. “I do not know how I can have been so dull as not to have thought of it. I own I did not. How long have you been convinced of this, Ned?”
“Convinced! I do not know that I am convinced now. It has come upon me gradually, I suppose. My inquiries into the circumstances of De Castres’s death and the discovery that Bedlington was gone into the country and was said by his butler to be in such indifferent health as to make rest and quiet indispensable, made me as certain as a man might well be without positive proof—which I will admit I have not. For that reason I would do nothing without consulting with you.”
John nodded, frowning. He walked to the table and poured himself a glass of madeira and stood gazing down at it meditatively. “It is not easy to see what one should do,” he said.
“No.”
“You have said yourself it is conjecture. If you are right how came Cheviot to know what his father was about?”
Carlyon shrugged. “There might be several answers, but I do not know them.”