“Your gardener may be right. But what lunatic, barring yourself and the horse-coper, Elkin, is in love with Doris Martin?”
Like Elkin the previous night, Grant struck the table till things rattled.
“Keep her name out of it,” he cried fiercely. “You are a man of the world, not a suspicious idiot of the Robinson type. You heard to-day the full and true explanation of her presence here on Monday night. It was a sheer accident. Why harp on Doris Martin rather than any member of the Bates family?”
“Who, may I ask, is Doris Martin?” put in Hart.
“The Steynholme postmaster’s daughter,” said Furneaux. “A remarkably pretty and intelligent girl. If her father was a peer she would be the belle of a London season. As it is, her good looks seem to have put a maggot in more than one nut in this village.”
Hart waved the negro’s head in the air.
“The lunatic theory for mine,” he declared. “If one woman’s lovely face could bring a thousand ships to Ilion, why should not another’s drive men to madness in Steynholme?”
“Well phrased, sir,” cackled Furneaux delightedly. “I’ll wangle that in on a respected colleague of mine, who is a whale at deducing a proposition from given premises, but cannot induce a general fact from particular instances to save his life ... Now, stifle your romantic frenzy, Mr. Grant, and listen to me. If you were minded to instruct me in the art of writing good English, I would sit at your feet an attentive disciple. When I, Furneaux, of the ‘Yard,’ lay down a first principle in the investigation of crime, I expect deference on your part. I tell you unhesitatingly that if Doris Martin didn’t exist, Adelaide Melhuish would be alive now. That, as a thesis, is nearly as certain a thing as that the sun will rise to-morrow. I go farther, and hazard the guess, not the fixed belief, though my guesses are usually borne out by events, that if Doris Martin had not been in this garden at half past ten on Monday night, Adelaide Melhuish would not have been killed some twenty minutes later. It is useless for you to fume and rage in vain effort to disprove either of these presumptive facts. You are simply beating the air. This mystery centers in and around the postmaster’s daughter. Come, now, you are a reasonable person. Admit the cold, hard truth, and then give play to your fancy.”
“Sir,” said Hart, brandishing his pipe again, “I suggest that you and I, here and now, form a mutual admiration society.”
“It is a cruel and bitter thing that an innocent girl should be dragged into association with a foul crime,” said Grant stubbornly. “I am not disputing the force of your acumen, Mr. Furneaux. My only desire is to shield the good name of a very charming young lady.”