“All in my way,” he said, “and a minute’s tram run back for you. I always walk down this bit of the Embankment on an autumn evening if I can—one of the loveliest views I know—London at its best.”
“Yes, sir; I wonder how many of us would have realized that if it hadn’t been for Whistler.”
They walked on for a minute or so in silence.
“You want me to amplify about Sir Garth and Mr. Ryland,” said the lawyer.
“I do, sir, but in the first place I’d like to know why you didn’t tell me when I came to see you on Friday,” said the detective dryly.
“You didn’t ask me, Inspector,” replied Mr. Menticle with a chuckle, “and yet I told you no lies. If you could review our conversation now you would find that I never referred to them as father and son—always as Sir Garth and Mr. Ryland.”
“I see, sir. I suppose you had some object. It seems a pity.”
“I still hoped that there was nothing behind your inquiries—that you would drop the case.”
“It makes it harder than ever for us to drop a case, sir, when we find that information is being withheld from us,” said Poole quietly.
“Yes, yes, Inspector. I accept your rebuke; it would have been wiser to have been quite frank. Now about the past; there is really not much that I did not say in Court, though I noticed that the Coroner was not pressing me. Sir Garth Fratten was, as you know, married twice, his first wife dying in 1902 and his second in 1918. By the second wife he had one daughter, Miss Inez Fratten, born in 1905, but by his first wife he had no child. A child was, however, born to her a short time before their marriage. Sir Garth was, I believe, aware of what was about to occur before he asked her to marry him—he was deeply attached to his first wife, almost worshipped her—and, he adopted the child as his own son. That was Ryland Fratten. Sir Garth could, of course, make him his heir or co-heir, but that is quite a different thing to his becoming the automatic heir in the event of intestacy. It was for a similar reason, I believe, that Sir Garth refused the suggested offer of a baronetcy—he did not wish it known that Ryland was not his son. That is all, I think.”