“After firing the shot Brett went downstairs again, and the Granges saw no more of him,” continued Detective Gillett. “No doubt Brett found Lumsden’s boots in the kitchen, as you said, and after putting them on forced the window downstairs and climbed out. He got into his car and drove off without lights, being very thankful to get away without any one seeing him—as he thought.
“The Granges did not know he had gone, and while they were quaking upstairs, wondering what to do, the front door was opened again and there was a light step in the hall. This was Miss Maynard. She had found the key in the lock which Brett had left there. By this time the storm had reached the farm. There was a high wind with heavy drops of rain. Miss Maynard, unconscious that there was a dead man upstairs, and Grange and his wife on the floor above, lighted the candle on the hallstand, and then took it into the sitting-room, where Brett had got out of the house. She sat down to wait for the appearance of Brett and Lumsden. No doubt the fact that she had found the key in the door convinced her that they were in the outbuildings. According to the Granges’ story, Miss Maynard arrived less than ten minutes after Brett’s final trip downstairs, and about a quarter of an hour after her arrival there came a knock at the front door. This was Captain Marsland.
“The rest of the story we know, from Captain Marsland’s statement to Westaway, the only thing that is wrong with it being his omission of all mention of Miss Maynard. Grange, bending over the stairs to watch, knocked down the picture that made such a crash. When Captain Marsland and Miss Maynard found the body, she knew immediately that Brett must have had something to do with the tragedy, and therefore she asked Captain Marsland to say nothing about her presence there. If he had done so she would have had to give us an account of her movements, and the object of her visit there, and all this would have directed suspicion to Brett.
“Not till half an hour after Grange and his wife heard the door close, when Captain Marsland and Miss Maynard departed, did they venture downstairs. They looked in at the room in which the body had been taken, and by the light of matches they saw the dead man in the chair. They got away from the house as fast as they could. They found the path down the cliff, and while Grange was helping his wife down it his hat blew off. He thought nothing of this at the time. In the old boat-house at the foot of the cliff they found Pedro, who had been sheltering there from the storm. They waited in the boat-house until the storm abated, and about nine o’clock they pushed off in the boat for Staveley, which they were unable to reach until nearly midnight, owing to the rough sea running.
“They decided to say nothing about what they knew, their intention being to keep out of the whole affair. They were afraid that they would be worried a great deal by the police if they said anything, and they were still more afraid that the fact that they had been connected with a murder would ruin their business. In the morning old Pedro was sent over to the landing-place to find the hat Grange had lost.”
“A very interesting story,” said Crewe.
“It is,” said Gillett with pride in his success as a narrator. “And it won’t lose much in dramatic interest when it is unfolded in evidence at the trial. In fact, I think it will gain in interest. What a shock it will be to Brett when he finds that he was seen carrying the body of Lumsden upstairs!”
“You are convinced that Brett was the murderer?” asked Crewe.
“Absolutely certain. Aren’t you?”
“No.”