“How about the exception to every rule? Might not this be an exceptional case?”
“It might, of course. There’s no truer saying than that fact is stranger than fiction; but, for all that, this notion of Lady Carmichael’s is a young lady’s notion, and it belongs to fiction and not to fact. I wouldn’t waste my time upon it, if I were you, Mr. Dalbrook.”
“I must keep my promise, Mr. Churton. I am obliged to you for your plain speaking, and I am inclined to agree with you; but I have made a promise, and I must keep it.”
“Naturally, sir; and if in the course of your inquiries I can be of any use to you, I shall be very glad to co-operate.”
“I rely on your help. Remember there is a handsome reward to be earned by you if you can bring about the discovery of the murderer. My part in the search will count for nothing.”
“I understand, sir. That’s a stimulus, no doubt; but I hardly wanted it. When a case baffles me as this case has done, I would work day and night, and live on bread and water for a month, to get at the rights of it. Good day. You’ve got my private address, and you can wire me anywhen.”
“You’re a Sussex man, Mr. Churton, I fancy?”
“Born in the village of Bramber.”
Theodore left Waterloo the following evening, and landed at St. Heliers on the following morning an hour or so before noon. He landed on the island as an absolute stranger, and with the vaguest idea of the work that lay before him, but with the determination to lose no time in beginning that work. He sent his valise to Brett’s Hotel, and he walked along the pier to the town, and inquired his way to the Police Office. He was not going in quest of information about a member of the criminal classes; but the man he was hunting had been a notorious drunkard, and it seemed to him that in a small settlement like St. Heliers such a man would have been likely to attract the attention of the police at some stage of his downward career.