‘The Chicot murder. Ah, that was the ballet dancer, was it not?’ inquired Lady Barker, who was so interested in this vivacious young man on her right hand, that she had hardly given due attention to Mr. Treverton, who was on her left. ‘I remember feeling rather interested in that mystery. A diabolical murder, certainly. And how stupid the police must have been not to find the murderer.’
‘Or how clever the murderer to sink his identity so completely as to give the police the slip,’ suggested Edward.
‘Oh, but he must have got away to the Colonies, or somewhere, surely,’ cried Lady Barker. ‘There are so many vessels leaving England now-a-days. You don’t imagine for a moment that the murderer of that wretched woman remained in England?’
‘I think it highly probable that he did, discreetly hidden under some outer shell of intense respectability.’
‘I suppose you think it was the husband?’ put in Sir Joshua Parker, from his place at Laura’s right hand.
‘I don’t see any ground for doubt,’ replied Edward. ‘If the husband was not guilty, why should he disappear the moment the crime was discovered?’
‘He may have had reasons of his own for wishing to get away, reasons unconnected with the mode and manner of his wife’s death,’ hazarded John Treverton.
‘What reasons could he have had strong enough to induce him to run the risk of being thought a murderer?’ asked Edward, incredulously. ‘No innocent man would place himself in such a position as that.’
‘Not knowingly,’ said John, ‘but this man may have acted on impulse, without reckoning the consequences of his act.’
‘To admit that would be to consider him a fool,’ retorted Edward; ‘and from all I have heard of the fellow, he belonged to the other half of humanity.’