"No," said Bede, quite sharply. "No, I should not like to do it. I never thought of Brown in the affair; never. I--can't--don't--think of him now."
Did he not now think of him? Butterby, with his keen ears, fancied the last concluding sentence had a false ring in it.
"Well, sir, that lies at your own option. I've done my duty in making you acquainted with this, but I've no call to stir in it, unless you choose to put it officially into my hands. But there's the other and graver matter, Mr. Bede Greatorex."
"What other?" questioned Bede, turning to him.
"That at Helstonleigh," said the detective. "All sorts of notions and thoughts--fanciful some of 'em--come crowding through my mind at once. I don't say that he had any hand in Mr. Ollivera's death; but it might have been so: and this, that has now come out, strengthens the suspicion against him in some points, and weakens it in others. You remember the queer conduct of Alletha Rye at the time, sir--her dream, and her show-off at the grave--which I had the satisfaction of looking on at myself--and her emotion altogether?"
Bede Greatorex replied that he did remember it: also remembered that he was unable to understand why it should have been so. But he spoke like one whose mind is far away, as if the questions bore little interest.
"George Winter and Alletha Rye were sweethearts: she used to live in Birmingham before she came to Helstonleigh. But for his getting into trouble, they'd soon have been married."
"Oh, sweethearts were they," carelessly observed Bede. "She is a superior young woman."
"Granted, sir. But them superior women are not a bit wiser nor better than others when their lovers is in question. Women have done mad things for men's sakes afore today; and it strikes me now, that Alletha Rye was just screening him, fearing he might have done it. I don't see how else her madness and mooning is to be accounted for. On the other hand, it seems uncommon droll that George Winter, hiding in that top room until he could get safely away, should set himself out to harm Mr. Ollivera; a man he'd never seen. Which was the view I took at the time."
"And highly improbable," murmured Bede.