Nasmyth looked irresolute; and then he answered reluctantly:
“There’s a fact I haven’t told you yet—Clarence came into the family property on George’s death; a fine old place, a fairly large estate. The sister doesn’t count, though she got her brother’s personal property—the land goes down in the male line.”
Lisle dropped his pipe.
“Now I understand! Gladwyne profits, my dead partner bore the shame. But do you believe the man meant to let his cousin die?”
“No,” Nasmyth answered sharply, “that’s unthinkable! But I blame him almost as much as if he had done so. Besides his duty to George, he had a duty to himself and to the family—the honorable men and women who had kept the name clean before him. Knowing he would inherit on George’s death, there was only one way open—he should have gone back, at any cost. Instead, to clear himself of the faintest trace of ugly suspicion, he lays the blame upon an innocent man.”
Lisle did not reply to this. He felt that had the grim choice been imposed upon his companion, the man would have taken the course he had indicated.
“You said that George Gladwyne was a naturalist,” he remarked. “Was he a methodical man?”
“Eminently so,” replied Nasmyth, wondering where the question led. He had already been astonished at Lisle’s close reasoning and the correctness of his deductions.
“Then he would have made notes on his journey and no doubt have kept some kind of diary. Did the rescue party recover it?”
“They did. It was given to George’s sister.”