They remained thus for some moments in silence, though Sir George kept glancing from time to time at his companion. Several times the baronet was on the verge of speaking, but checked himself. At length Crewe, without looking away from the fire, said:
“You would like to ask me to go into this case your nephew has discovered to-night, but you do not think it would be quite courteous on your part to do so, because I am your guest.”
“Well, yes, I was thinking that, though I don’t know how you guessed it,” said Sir George, in some surprise. “For more reasons than one I am worried about my nephew getting mixed up with this tragedy.”
“Tell me why,” said Crewe sympathetically, turning away from the fire and looking at his host.
It was past one o’clock when Crewe retired to his room. The object of his visit to Sir George Granville had been to obtain a rest after some weeks of investigation into the Malmesbury case, as the newspapers called it; his investigation having resulted in the capture of the elusive Malmesbury who had swindled the insurance companies out of £20,000 by arranging his own death and burial.
Crewe smiled to himself once or twice as he slowly undressed. Instead of entering into a quiet week-end he found that within a few hours of his arrival he was on the threshold of another investigation. He had not met his host’s nephew, Harry Marsland, as the young man had left for his ride on the downs before Crewe reached the house. But from what Sir George had told him Crewe felt attracted to the young man. Marsland, who was the only son of Sir George’s only sister, had purchased a junior partnership in a firm of consulting engineers shortly after attending his majority, but as soon as the war broke out he offered his services and obtained a commission.
He had seen over six months’ fighting before being wounded by a shell. The long strain of warfare, the shock of the explosion and the wounds he had received in the head from shell splinters made his recovery very slow. He had been in hospital for three months, and though now convalescent he would never be fit for service again and had been invalided out of the army. There had been a time in hospital when his life hung by a thread. During days and nights of delirium his mind had been haunted by the scenes of horror he had witnessed at the front. He had seen hundreds of men go through the agonies of death from terrible wounds and gas torture; he had seen human forms blown to pieces, and the men falling in hundreds from machine-gun fire as they charged the German trenches.
The hospital doctors had hinted to Sir George of the possibility of his nephew’s reason being affected by what he had gone through, but fortunately the young man was spared this calamity. Sir George had been warned not to let his nephew talk about the war and to keep his mind occupied with more cheerful subjects of conversation. In pursuance of these instructions no reference was made to the war in young Marsland’s presence, and his rank as captain was studiously forgotten.
It was on the ground of his nephew’s health and the danger that lay in mental worry that Sir George Granville begged Crewe, before he retired, to promise to investigate the crime at Cliff Farm if it turned out to be a case which was likely to baffle the police and result in protracted worry to those innocently brought into it. Crewe recognized the force of the appeal and had promised to give some time to the case if the circumstances seemed to demand it. He reserved his final decision until after the visit to Cliff Farm, which Sir George had arranged to make in the morning.
Anxiety on his nephew’s behalf got Sir George out of bed early, and when Crewe reached the breakfast-room he found his host waiting for him. The heartiness with which he greeted Crewe seemed to embody some relief after a strain on patience.