“That is so,” chimed in the senior detective. “The thing that beats me in this affair is the want of a beginning, so to speak. One would imagine it the work of a lunatic if Lady Dyke herself had not contributed so curiously to the mystery of her disappearance.”
“There you are, White; that is the true scent. Find the motive and we find the murderer, if Lady Dyke was wilfully put to death.”
“If she was, Mr. Bruce? Have you any doubt about it?”
“There cannot be certainty when we are groping in the dark. But the gloom is passing; we are on the eve of a discovery.”
At Bruce’s residence White’s colleague left him. Soon the barrister and the policeman were sitting snugly before a good fire.
There Claude took him step by step through each branch of his inquiry as it is known to the reader.
He omitted nothing. The discovery of Jane Harding and of Mensmore, the latter’s transactions with Dodge & Co., his dramatic coup at Monte Carlo and its attendant love episode—all these were exhaustively described. He enlarged upon Mrs. Hillmer’s anxiety when the tragedy became known to her, and did not forget Sir Charles Dyke’s amazement at the suggestion that his old playmate might prove to be responsible for the death of his wife.
He produced the waxen moulds of the piece of iron found on the body at Putney, and the ornamental scroll from which it had been taken.
At this bit of evidence Mr. White’s complacency forsook him. Thus far he had experienced a feeling of resentment against Bruce for having concealed from him so much that was material to their investigation.