“Yes,” replied Blick. He was already wondering how much of whatever was coming was to be relied on; as far as he had seen into her character, Daffy did not seem the sort of woman to tell anything that would not benefit herself. But she might have reasons for benefiting Jim Roper which was not yet apparent. “Yes,” he repeated, “I’ve heard of Jim Roper. He’s the man who wanted to marry your sister, Myra, isn’t he—the sister who ran away with and married Guy Markenmore?”
“That’s just it,” assented Daffy. “It’s because he was about to marry Myra when she threw him clean over and went off with Guy Markenmore that Roper hasn’t spoken. But a hundred pounds might induce him to speak!”
“What do you mean, exactly, about it’s because of that?” asked Blick. “And what is it that he hasn’t spoken of?”
“Well,” replied Daffy, with a glance that took in both men, “it’s like this—Roper is, and always was, what you’d call a dark-tempered man. The sort that never forgets nor forgives. He’d always meant to marry Myra, and she’d promised him, too. In fact, they were just about to have the banns published when she suddenly ran away with Guy. And, of course, nobody—not even me, her own sister!—ever knew what had become of her until recently, when all this business came out about their having got married. Roper, when she first went off, went many a time to London to look for her. He never got a trace of her, of course, but he always swore that it was Guy Markenmore who’d enticed her away. And he swore something else, too—that if ever he chanced across Guy Markenmore he’d kill him, if he swung for it there and then. He meant it, too! That was about the last thing he said to me just before I went to India, with Mrs. Tretheroe, and it was the first thing I heard him say when I came back here, seven years later.”
“Still meaning to do it, eh?—after seven years?” said Blick.
“I believe he’d have done it if he’d met Guy Markenmore after seventeen years!” replied Daffy. “He’s that sort! I could see he’d got worse with brooding over it. It was the one thing on his mind. Why, it’s only a fortnight ago that I met him hereabouts one day, and happened to mention that old Sir Anthony was on his last legs, and that I’d wondered if Guy would come back and be master, and he scowled and said that if Guy ever came back it would only be to get a knife through him! And I’ll tell you, since it is between ourselves, that when I heard that Guy had been murdered, I fully believed that Roper had met him that morning and done for him—I really did!”
“And you don’t believe it now?” suggested Blick.
“No!” asserted Daffy. “But I believe Roper has a very good idea as to who did murder him. In fact, he may have more than an idea—he may know. And I tell you that he may be inclined to tell you for a hundred pounds, for now that he knows Myra is dead, he wants to leave here and go abroad.”
“What makes you think that Roper knows something?” enquired Blick. “Let’s have it straight out, now! Has he said anything to you?”
“Yes!” replied Daffy. “I met him a night or two ago, when he’d come down to the village to do his shopping. We got talking by that gate where you met me just now, and, of course, it was all about the murder. I asked him straight out if he’d had anything to do with it? He said no, worse luck, he hadn’t! And then he said more. ‘I could tell something about it,’ he said, ‘but I ain’t going to, for the thing’s done, now. I ain’t going to help the police,’ he went on. ‘Let ’em do their own work.’ That was all—he went off, then.”