"Hardly. Gad! it's amazing, positively extraordinary how you've found all this out!" threw in that gentleman with deep emphasis. "Please accept my apologies now for those unforgivable things I said to you, Mr. Cleek. But when a chap's just been practically accused of killing his own father——"
"You must expect a little heat. That's all right, my friend. Don't bother about it further. Only, I was obliged to throw the scent upon someone other than the real man—or we'd have lost him. You understand that, of course?"
"Certainly. Only tell us how you traced the murder to its proper source, and why James Tavish should have done such a thing."
"That I will, and in the shortest way possible. But you must let me tell my story in my own particular manner," replied Cleek, with a slight smile and a warmth of feeling toward this very impetuous and generous-hearted young man. "There's still a good deal to be cleared up before you can understand, and I'm afraid some of it won't make particularly good hearing. But that I cannot help. Men are frail things, Sir Ross, where temptation is concerned. And when there is a pretty woman in the question ... it's all right, Lady Paula; it all happened long before you entered your husband's life, so that there is nothing for you to forgive—but, as I say, when a pretty woman enters at one door, a man's discretion very often flies out at another.
"I found, among other things yesterday, when I was looking for the will in your father's desk, after having appropriated his keys first, a bundle of old love-letters, written upon paper which I ascertained had been bought in the village, and bearing a post-mark which was local, and signed with the name 'Jeannette.' I confess I did not know just where these entered into the case at all, but something told me that they were a big factor. My intuition—policeman's sixth sense—call it what you will. I looked into the matter, and then discovered, after some probing through my man Dollops (who, by the way, Mr. Narkom, deserves high commendation in this case), that they were actually written by James Tavish's sister, Jeannette, and that—to put it baldly, for which I trust you will forgive me—that your father had been carrying on a secret liaison with this girl for some years, upon promise of marriage, and had, in fact, got her into very unfortunate trouble."
"But he never married her—he married me— I am his legal wife, I swear that!" struck in Lady Paula, in a high-pitched, terrified voice. "I knew nothing of this woman at all—everything in our marriage was in order——"
"Of that there is not the smallest doubt, Lady Paula," returned Cleek gravely. "I said only 'under promise of marriage.' That is where man is unfortunately so unfaithful. He merely left her to bear her trouble alone—after, of course, providing for her and the possible issue of their unhappy union—and, being a faithful woman, it broke her heart, and both she and her child died as a consequence of this neglect. When the wish to live is gone, there is little else to bind one to this earth at such times, my friends, and so she and her unwanted little one passed out to a happier realm. Much of this I have gleaned from those same letters; much I have deduced in the natural course of events. The final clue was discovered in James Tavish's own room, where this photograph, bearing the date of her death and that of her child, and having one word written across the face of it, was discovered in a box on his dressing-table."
He handed the piece of pictured pasteboard across to each of them in turn, watching their faces to see the effect of it upon them individually. Mute astonishment, dull grief showed in Ross and Maud Duggan's eyes as they looked upon it. It was as though they had discovered suddenly that their idol had feet of clay. For across the front of the pictured face was written one word in heavy black scrawl, and the word was "Avenged!"