All those men whose professions, be they lawyers, doctors, ministers of the gospel, whose way of life brings them closely in touch with human nature, soon become aware of how difficult it is to form any accurate view concerning the secret relations of a man and a woman. Mr. Kentworthy had come to the reluctant conclusion that long before his wife’s death Garlett had lived a double life. He was convinced of the truth of Lucy Warren’s statement as to the meetings in the wood, and the more convinced because the girl had made it unwillingly, indeed had been frightened into making it. Twice he had tried in the last three days to get in touch with her again, each time choosing a moment when Miss Prince was out. But Lucy Warren had defied him, and the second time he had seen her she had said with a shrewdness that surprised him:
“I am not bound to tell you anything now. It was different when you came from the police.”
Kentworthy was convinced that she had told the truth, and so he accepted it as a fact that Garlett had been in the habit of meeting a woman secretly at night. Further, he believed that the anonymous letters had been written by that unknown woman, and he hoped that her association with Garlett—of whatever nature it might prove to be—would provide a sufficiently strong motive for her to have committed secret murder.
With his mind full of these vague and uncertain half-suspicions, the detective came within sight of Bonnie Doon, and then he hastened his steps, for the doctor’s motor was already before the door waiting to start for the police court in Grendon where Harry Garlett’s fate was to be decided to-day so far as it was within the power of the local magistrates to decide it.
CHAPTER XVI
Early that same afternoon Miss Prince made her way to the rectory. She felt too anxious, too excited, too restless to stay quietly at home, and she knew that the rector would soon be returning with the news of what had happened.
She and the rector’s wife, Mrs. Cole-Wright, were on terms of armed neutrality rather than friendship, and that though they “ran the parish” between them. Mrs. Cole-Wright was the best-read woman in the neighbourhood. In happier circumstances she might have cut a certain figure in the world. As it was, her sarcastic tongue and reputation for “cleverness” caused her to be avoided by many of her neighbours.
She shared to the full the prevailing excitement concerning Harry Garlett, and so, for once, she was glad to see Miss Prince.
“The rector is not yet back,” she observed, “but you must wait and hear what he has to say. I suppose that unfortunate man has been committed for trial, though I don’t quite see what actual evidence they have against him.”
“How d’you mean?” exclaimed the other, surprised. “Surely you don’t doubt that poor Emily Garlett was poisoned?”