“Of course I don’t doubt that,” answered Mrs. Cole-Wright impatiently. “But I do ask myself how they will be able to bring the murder home to Harry Garlett, unless they can prove that he had arsenic in his possession, or that he bought arsenic for any purpose whatsoever, within a comparatively short time of his wife’s death.”
“I think it’s almost certain that they did find some arsenic in the Thatched House,” said Miss Prince. “But we shall soon know——”
She did not look up as she spoke; she kept her eyes fixed on a worn spot in the rectory drawing-room carpet.
Even as she said the words there came the sound of the front door opening and shutting, and a moment later the rector came hurriedly into the room, almost as eager to tell his news as they were to hear it.
“Well, it’s gone as I suppose we all expected it to do,” he exclaimed. “Garlett has been committed for trial at the next assizes on the charge of having murdered his wife!”
“How did he take it?” asked his wife.
“Very oddly, to my thinking. The unhappy man addressed the magistrates. Think of that! Why, he himself was sitting on that very magistrate’s bench less than a month ago——”
“What did he say?” exclaimed the two ladies together.
“He only spoke for about three minutes—but it seemed an hour to me! He declared most solemnly that he was not guilty, and he made a kind of appeal—it made me go hot all over—asking how it was possible that any one who had ever known him could believe him guilty?”
And then Miss Prince looked into the rector’s kindly, troubled face.