Marguérite, who had been listening intently, could no longer restrain her excitement.
"Yes," she cried, "that is so correct that it is quite wonderful. My father had a half-hunter gold watch and a chain of twisted leather which he wore as long as I can remember. Both had gone when he came to us in Paris; when I missed them, and asked what had become of them, he said they were lost, much to his annoyance, and he had been obliged to buy a new watch in London."
"There is nothing wonderful in treating a watch and chain as the first objects which would lead to a man's identification," said Armathwaite. "Now, don't let your admiration for the excessive wisdom of the court tempt you to interrupt again, because the court has not fully made up its own mind and is marshaling its views aloud in order to hear how they sound. Where were we? Still in Section D, I think. Well, granted that an obtuse policeman or a perplexed doctor refused to admit that Stephen Garth was dead, the letter would clinch the matter. Indeed, from the report of the inquest, we see that it did achieve its purpose. The remaining heads of the argument may be set forth briefly:
E.—Stephen Garth is buried at Bellerby, and Stephen Ogilvey steps into new life in Paris, wearing a literary cloak already prepared by many years of patient industry, though no one in Elmdale knew that its well-known resident was a famous writer on folk-lore.
F.—After some months of foreign travel, it was deemed safe to return to England, and Cornwall was chosen as a place of residence. The connection between rural Cornwall and rural Yorkshire is almost as remote as the influence of Mars on the earth. Both belong to the same system, and there would be trouble if they became detached, but, otherwise, they move in different orbits; they have plenty of interests in common, but no active cohesion. In a word, Stephen Ogilvey ran little risk in Cornwall of being recognized as Stephen Garth.
G.—Mrs. Ogilvey, a most estimable lady, and quite as unlikely as her scholar-husband to be associated with a crime, was a party to all these mysterious proceedings, and the combined object of husband and wife was to keep their daughter in ignorance of the facts for a time, at least, if not forever.
"I don't think I need carry the demonstration any further to-night. You are not to retire to your room and sob yourself into a state of hysteria because your coming to Elmdale has threatened with destruction an edifice of deceit built with such care and skill. I am beginning to recognize now a fatalistic element in the events of the past twenty-four hours that suggests the steady march of a Greek tragedy to its predestined end. But the dramatic art has undergone many changes since the days of Euripides. Let's see if we cannot avail ourselves of modern methods, and keep the tragic dénouement in the place where it has been put already, namely, in Bellerby churchyard."
The girl stood up, and gave him her hand.
"I'm almost certain, Bob, that if you and dad had five minutes' talk, there would be an end of the mystery," she said.
"And a commencement of a long friendship, I hope," he said.
Their eyes met, and Meg's steady gaze faltered for the first time. She almost ran out of the room, and Armathwaite sat many minutes in utter stillness, looking through the window at the dark crest of the moor silhouetted against a star-lit sky. Then he refilled his pipe, and picked up the book he had taken haphazard from the well-stored shelves of that curiously constituted person, Stephen Ogilvey.
It was a solid tome, entitled: "Scottish Criminal Trials," and lay side by side with "The Golden Bough," which Marguérite had spoken of, and a German work, "Geschichte des Teufels." Turning over the leaves, he found that someone had marked a passage with ink. The reference had been noted many years ago, because the marks were faded and brown, but the paragraph thus singled out had an extraordinary vivid bearing on the day's occurrences.