He knew well that to endeavour to get Margaret to implicate her husband would merely render her an active opponent. She loved this Italian scamp. She was profoundly thankful that David Hume had come back to claim the hand of Helen Layton, the woman who had been the unwilling object of Capella’s wayward affections. She would be only too glad to give half her property to the young couple if they would settle in New Zealand or Peru—far from Beechcroft.
Yet it was impossible to believe that she could love a man whom she suspected of murdering her brother. Why, then, had husband and wife drifted apart? Assuredly the pieces of the puzzle were inextricably mixed.
“Where did you marry Mr. Capella?” asked Brett suddenly.
“At Naples—a civil ceremony, before the Mayor, and registered by the British Consul.”
“Had you been long acquainted”
“I met him, oddly enough, in Covent Garden Theatre, the night my brother was killed”
It was now Brett’s turn to be startled.
“Are you quite certain of this?” he asked, his surprise at the turn taken by the conversation almost throwing him off his guard.
“Positive. Were you led to believe that Giovanni was the murderer?”
Her voice was cold, impassive, marvellously under control. It warned him, threw him back into the safe rôle of Hume’s adviser and friend.