Stobb smiled, rubbed his chin and looked at Carfax. And Carfax pointed to Stobb's partner, a very quiet, observant man who had listened with a sly expression on his face.
"Your turn, Leykin," he said. "Tell the result of your inquiries."
Leykin was one of those men who possess soft voices and slow speech. Invited to play his part, he looked at Brereton as if he were half apologizing for anything he had to say.
"Well," he said, "of course, sir, what Miss Pett told you about her posts at two London hotels was quite right. She had been storekeeper at one, and linen-keeper at another—before she went to Major Stilman. There was nothing against her at either of those places. But of course I wanted to know more about her than that. Now she said in answer to you that before she went to the first of those hotels she had lived at home with her father, a Sussex farmer. So she had—but it was a long time before. She had spent ten years in India between leaving home and going to the Royal Belvedere. She went out to India as a nurse in an officer's family. And while she was in India she was charged with strangling a fellow-servant—a Eurasian girl who had excited her jealousy."
Brereton started again at that, and he turned a sharp glance on Carfax, who nodded emphatically and signed to Leykin to proceed.
"I have the report of that affair in my pocket," continued Leykin, more softly and slowly than ever. "It's worth reading, Mr. Brereton, and perhaps you'll amuse yourself with it sometime. But I can give you the gist of it in a few words. Pett was evidently in love with her master's orderly. He wasn't in love with her. She became madly jealous of this Eurasian girl, who was under-nurse. The Eurasian girl was found near the house one night with a cord tightly twisted round her neck—dead, of course. There were no other signs of violence, but some gold ornaments which the girl wore had disappeared. Pett was tried—and she was discharged, for she set up an alibi—of a sort that wouldn't have satisfied me," remarked Leykin in an aside. "But there was a queer bit of evidence given which you may think of use now. One of the witnesses said that Pett had been much interested in reading some book about the methods of the Thugs, and had talked in the servants' quarters of how they strangled their victims with shawls of the finest silk. Now this Eurasian girl had been strangled with a silk handkerchief—and if that handkerchief could only have been traced to Pett, she'd have been found guilty. But, as I said, she was found not guilty—and she left her place at once and evidently returned to England. That's all, sir."
"Stobb has a matter that might be mentioned," said Carfax, glancing at the other inquiry agent.
"Well, it's not much, Mr. Brereton," said Stobb. "It's merely that we've ascertained that Kitely had left all he had to this woman, and that——"
"I know that," interrupted Brereton. "She made no concealment of it. Or, rather, her nephew, acting for her, didn't."
"Just so," remarked Stobb drily. "But did you know that the nephew had already proved the will, and sold the property? No?—well, he has! Not much time lost, you see, after the old man's death, sir. In fact, it's been done about as quickly as it well could be done. And of course Miss Pett will have received her legacy—which means that by this time she'll have got all that Kitely had to leave."