“Knowing what I do, I cannot accept any other conclusion. A worthy and estimable lady leaves her home suddenly, without the slightest imaginary cause, and she is found in the Thames with a piece of iron driven into her brain, while the medical evidence is clear that death was not due to drowning. What other inference can be drawn than that she was foully done to death?”
“Heaven help me, I cannot tell. Yet I appeal to you to let matters rest where they are if it is possible.”
“It is not possible. I cannot control the police. I am merely a private agent acting on my own responsibility and on behalf of Lady Dyke’s relatives.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Bruce. I am not asking this thing on account of my sister or myself.”
“On whose account, then?”
Mensmore did not answer for a moment. He looked mournfully into the fire for inspiration.
“Perhaps I had better tell you,” he said, “that I have broken off my engagement with Miss Browne.”
The other jumped from his chair.
“What the dickens do you mean?” he cried.
“Exactly what I have said. When we met on Monday night, I did not mention that Sir William and Lady Browne and their daughter travelled back to England with us. On Tuesday I saw Phyllis. In view of the shadow thrown on me by this frightful charge I thought it my duty to release her from any ties. If my sister has to figure in a court of law as a principal, or accomplice, in a murder case—and possibly myself with her—I could not consent to associate my poor Phyllis’s name with mine. So I took the plunge.”