When she recovered herself somewhat, she said, "Molly, depend upon it, that De Chevron is at the bottom of this."
Now, although I knew De Chevron to be a hardened villain and capable of any atrocity, I did not see myself how he could possibly be connected with the murder, he being absent from the village at the time. Neither did I for a moment believe John Archer capable of the crime. The evidence against him was singularly unfortunate, it is true; but no one who knew the man as intimately as we did could really have believed him guilty. It was clear that someone must have committed the murder. Who, then, was likely to have done so?
De Chevron was a villain, we knew, but that was no proof that he was the murderer. However, I excused this seeming unreasonableness in my friend, considering the state of her mind at the time, and merely suggested:
"But he is in London, my dear."
"I tell you he is mixed up in the affair," persisted Claribel. "I was warned of this in my dream."
"I fear that would have little weight in a court of justice," I replied.
"De Chevron is the murderer, and no one else," she persisted, doggedly.
"But, my dear Claribel," said I, soothingly, "allowing that he is a wicked, heartless villain, just think for a moment how you would support your accusation in a court of law. A pedlar is found murdered in a ditch, and a gentleman of De Chevron's condition now in London, where he has been for the last week, is accused of the murder. Consider the absurdity of the idea."
"How do you know he has been in London all the time?" asked my friend.
"Well, I grant you, I did not see him go," said I; "but when a man gives out that he is going away from a place, and has not been seen by anyone since, especially when it is in a little village like this, where everybody knows everybody else's business, the probability is that he has left."