“Never mind. Tell them; tell everybody you know.”
“It would be useless,” Prescott said doggedly.
“You’re wrong,” Muriel persisted. “When a thing is talked about enough, people begin to believe it. Besides, it would give your supporters an argument against the doubtful. I’m afraid they need one after the finding of the clothes.”
“The clothes? What clothes?”
Muriel’s faith in Prescott had never been shaken, but his surprise caused her keen satisfaction, and she told him all she knew about Jernyngham’s discovery.
“Still, I don’t see what finding them there could signify,” he said when she had finished.
“Then you don’t know that a day or two after Cyril Jernyngham disappeared, a man dressed in clothes like those found, sold some land of his at a place called Navarino?”
Prescott started.
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it. There’s some villainy here; the things must have been hidden near my house with the object of strengthening suspicion against me!”
“Of course! But you can’t think that Jernyngham had a hand in it?”