Abbershaw looked at him curiously as he spoke.
‘Certainly,’ said Wyatt calmly. ‘I chose each one of you deliberately. You were all people of blameless reputation. There was not one of you who could not clear himself with perfect certainty. The suspicion would therefore necessarily fall on one of my uncle’s own guests, each of whom had done, if not murder, something more than as bad. I thought Campion was of their party until we were all prisoners. Until Prenderby told me, I thought Anne Edgeware had brought him, even then.’
‘You ran an extraordinary risk,’ said Abbershaw.
Wyatt shook his head.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘I was my uncle’s benefactor, not he mine. I had nothing to gain by his death, and I should have been as free from suspicion as any of you. Of course,’ he went on, ‘I had no idea that things would turn out as they did. No one could have been more surprised than I when they concealed the murder in that extraordinary way. When I realized that they had lost something I understood, and I was desperately anxious that they should not recover what I took to be my uncle’s notes for the gang’s next coup. That is why I asked you to stay.’
‘Of course,’ said Abbershaw slowly, ‘you were wrong.’
‘In not pitching on von Faber as my first victim?’ said Wyatt.
Abbershaw shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘In setting out to fight a social evil single-handed. That is always a mad thing to do.’
Wyatt raised his eyes to meet the other’s.