"Robbed? No! She was not clever enough for that," cut in Ottilie, with her harsh sneer. "Had she possessed wit enough to rifle his pockets and fling his watch into a thicket, she would have stood a better chance."
"Miss Brabourne is, perhaps, not so well versed in the science of these matters as you seem to be, madam," was the mild answer. "Yet, if she possessed cunning enough to conceive the plan of murdering her brother for his fortune, it would seem consistent to credit her also with cunning enough to do all in her power to avert suspicion; to me, it amounts to a moral impossibility that any young lady in her right mind should perpetrate such a deed, and then walk quietly home without so much as making up a single falsehood to shield herself."
"Murderers, especially inexperienced ones, are never consistent," returned Mrs. Orton, furiously, "as you would know, if you knew anything at all of the matter."
"Ottilie, Ottilie, come away, for goodness sake—it is snobbish to get up a row," urged her husband, in low tones; and, taking her by the arm, he led her unwillingly away from the scene of conflict.
Claud and Percivale were left confronting each other.
"The valley will have a pretty ghastly celebrity attaching to it after this," remarked the former, removing his straw hat to pass his handkerchief over his hot brow. "This is the second mysterious affair within one summer."
"The second!" echoed Percivale, keenly, turning his eyes upon him full of awakened interest.
"Yes; and with points of similarity too. Each victim had been attacked from behind, and beaten with a heavy stick; there was no robbery in either case, and Miss Elsa Brabourne in the former case, oddly enough, was the person to discover the insensible victim. Whether the incident unconsciously influenced her, whether as is the case sometimes, according to newspapers, the ease with which one crime had been committed suggested another, I cannot of course say——"
"Was the man killed?"
"No; he recovered: but had no idea as to who was his assailant. We had down a detective——"