“He happened to be staying at Staveley with Sir George Granville on the night of the murder, and when Mr. Marsland rang up his uncle, Sir George Granville, from the Ashlingsea police station to say he was all right, and to tell Sir George about the murder, Mr. Crewe was naturally interested in it. He took up the case on his own initiative because his host’s nephew discovered the body.”
“I can’t follow you,” he said. “Who is Mr. Marsland?” He started back with a look of terror in his eyes. “My God, you don’t mean Captain Marsland? That is who it is; that is who it is! I knew I was right.”
“Arnold, what is the matter?” she exclaimed, rising to her feet and putting a hand on his shoulder. “You look dreadful.”
“Captain Marsland,” he muttered. “Captain Marsland come to life again.” He raised his clenched hand and shook it slowly as if to give impressive emphasis to his words. “That is the man who shot poor Frank. I knew I was right.”
“Impossible.”
He turned on her fiercely.
“Impossible,” he echoed. “Who are you to say it is impossible? What do you know about it or about him? Perhaps you are in love with him?”
“Don’t be foolish, Arnold,” she said sternly. “The Mr. Marsland I am speaking of is not a captain—at least, he does not wear uniform, and I have not heard any one call him ‘captain.’ At any rate, it is impossible for him to have killed Frank Lumsden. I was at the farm before he was, and poor Frank’s dead body was upstairs all the time I was there, though I did not know it.”
“All the time you were there? When did you get there?”
“About six o’clock—just as the storm came on.”