Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room—then he came back to where the other man was sitting.
"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there has never been, in the whole history of criminal jurisprudence, so far as I am acquainted with it, any crime planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity, and—and—well, yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical cunning. So true is that that——" He took another turn up and down the room, and then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off—scot free! He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best intellects at the Criminal Bar—that he himself has no mean intellect he has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be in the least surprised if he managed to scrape through! More fortunate than most of his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with the widow of the man he murdered—if she can be brought to believe in him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believe anything of those they love, or at any rate, they can be brought to seem to believe anything!"
He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant."
"But you don't think—surely you don't think——"
"No, no——" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don't think Mrs. Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind you—ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's a brave man. He did the job himself—even if he was helped by his friend."
He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to heart than he had expected.
"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, complicated story; and of course I'm trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I tell you now must never go beyond these four walls."
Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him—the other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one heart-beat—Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companionship in the evening of his days....
"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story—to which I shall make allusion presently—Oliver Tropenell's best chance lies in the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that question will be to put in these two anonymous letters."