“He will tell you that on Saturday about midday Brett rang him up—from Lewes, Gosford says, but it was more probably from Marlingsea, on his way to London—and told him that he had met with an accident with the car, and that it was lying in the ditch on the side of the road about six miles out from Staveley on the road to this place. It was there that Gosford’s foreman found the car when he went for it. If Brett hired a car at Staveley on Friday he couldn’t have left Staveley on Thursday, as his landlady says. She doesn’t know what to think in regard to this murder, but she is ready to shield Brett all she can because she is in love with him.”
CHAPTER XIX
“I must say that I feel very grateful to you, Mr. Crewe,” said Detective Gillett after a pause. “You have certainly got hold of some facts of which I was not aware. And your deductions are most interesting. What do you say, Westaway?”
“Most interesting,” said the sergeant. “I had heard a lot of Mr. Crewe before I met him, but I’d like to say that it’s a great privilege to listen to his deductions.”
“Oh, I don’t go so far as to accept his theory and abandon my own,” interposed Gillett hurriedly. “To my mind there is truth in both of them, and the whole truth will probably be found in a judicious combination of both.”
Crewe could scarcely hide his impatience at Gillett’s obstinacy, and his determination to claim at least an equal share in solving the mystery.
“My dear Gillett,” he said, “let us abandon theories and keep to facts. The great danger in our work is in fitting facts to theories instead of letting the facts speak for themselves. If you still think you have a case against Marsland, let us go into it. It is no part of my work to prove Marsland innocent if he is guilty; I have no object in proving Brett guilty if he is innocent. But as the guest of Sir George Granville, I want to save him and his nephew unnecessary distress and anxiety. By a full and frank discussion we can decide as man to man whether there is any real case for Marsland to answer. I admit that you have justification for some suspicions in regard to him, but let us see if the fog of suspicion cannot be cleared away by a discussion of the facts.”
“It will take a great deal to convince me that he doesn’t know more about this tragedy than he has told us,” said Gillett doggedly.
“But are we to find him guilty merely because he chooses to keep silence on certain points?”