“Ah, those buts!” he said. “As you remarked just now, Cox-Raythwaite, there is always a but. Now, this particular one—what is it?”
“Let me finish my sentence,” responded the Professor. “I say, I do not believe Barthorpe to be guilty of murder, though guilty enough of a particularly mean, dirty, and sneaking conspiracy to defraud his cousin. Yes, innocent of murder—but it will be a stiff job to prove his innocence. As things stand, he’ll be hanged safe enough! You know what our juries are, Tertius—evidence such as that which has been put before the coroner and the magistrate will be quite sufficient to damn him at the Old Bailey. Ample!”
“What do you suggest, then?” asked Mr. Tertius.
“Suggestion,” answered the Professor, “is a difficult matter. But there are two things—perhaps more, but certainly two—on which I want light. The first is—nobody has succeeded in unearthing the man who went to the House of Commons to see Jacob on the night of the murder. In spite of everything, advertisements and all the rest of it, he’s never come forward. If you remember, Halfpenny had a theory that the letter and the object which Mountain saw Jacob hand to that man were a note to the Safe Deposit people and the key of the safe. Now we know that’s not so, because no one ever brought any letter to the Safe Deposit people and nobody’s ever opened the safe. Halfpenny, too, believed, during the period of the police officials’ masterly silence, that that man had put himself in communication with them. Now we know that the police have never heard anything whatever of him, have never traced him. I’m convinced that if we could unearth that man we should learn something. But how to do it, I don’t know.”
“And the other point?” asked Selwood, after a pause during which everybody seemed to be ruminating deeply. “You mentioned two.”
“The other point,” replied the Professor, “is one on which I am going to make a practical suggestion. It’s this—I believe that Barthorpe told the truth in that statement of his which I’ve just read to you, but I should like to know if he told all the truth—all! He may have omitted some slight thing, some infinitesimal circumstance——”
“Do you mean about himself or—what?” asked Selwood.
“I mean some very—or seemingly very—slight thing, during his two visits to the estate office that night, which, however slight it may seem, would form a clue to the real murderer,” answered the Professor. “He may have seen something, noticed something, and forgotten it, or not attached great importance to it. And, in short,” he continued, with added emphasis, “in short, my friends, Barthorpe must be visited, interviewed, questioned—not merely by his legal advisers, but by some friend, and the very person to do it”—here he turned and laid his great hand on Peggie’s shoulder—“is—you, my dear!”
“I!” exclaimed Peggie.
“You, certainly! Nobody better. He will tell you what he would tell no one else,” said the Professor. “You’re the person. Am I not right, Tertius?”