"What, between my brother and Mr. Haldane? The idea is quite absurd. They are only very slightly acquainted, and Osmond is at least six years older than he is!"
"Will you tell me, on your honor, whether you yourself can account in any way at all for what has occurred? Had you any reason whatever to think it likely such a thing might happen? Or were you absolutely and utterly horrified and surprised by such news?"
"I was horrified and surprised beyond measure; so were my sisters. We are as much in the dark about the matter as you can possibly be. I can offer no guess or conjecture on the subject; it is quite inexplicable to me."
"And you would think it quite folly to connect it in any way with Mr. Haldane?"
She laughed rather contemptuously.
"I'm afraid, even if he did cherish a secret grudge, Mr. Haldane is not rich enough to employ paid agents to do his murders for him; and, as he was at work in the R.A. schools when the crime was committed, it does seem to me unlikely, to say the least of it, that he had anything to do with the matter. What can make you think he had?"
"Merely," answered the detective, somewhat confused, "that in these cases sometimes everything hangs on what seems such a trifling bit of evidence; and as you said this gentleman recommended your brother to come to this particular place——"
"You thought he had an arrière pensée. I am afraid you are quite wrong. I cannot see how Mr. Haldane could possibly serve any ends of his own by compassing my brother's destruction," she said, evidently with ironical gravity. "Besides, I hardly think that either he or his agent would have troubled to carry away an empty basin as a momento of the deed."
"The people all declare that no stranger passed through the village on that day," put in Claud.
"No; and none of the inhabitants walked out towards the farm in the afternoon except Miss Brabourne and her maid. I have ascertained that past a doubt. I don't see any daylight nowhere," said poor Mr. Dickens, becoming ungrammatical in his despair.