But Stillman knew nothing as to that; it might be so, or it might not, but it was quite certain that Thoyne was paying for the child now. And there was another interesting point he had forgotten to mention. When Mary Grainger went to Long Burminster she called herself Mrs. Blewshaw, and wore a wedding ring, which, in fact, was buried with her.
It was when she was ill and knew she could not recover, that Mary had written to her father, who had replied with a violent refusal either to see her or to forgive her. Happily, Mary herself had never seen that letter. She died peacefully and painlessly before it came.
Mrs. Greentree had shown it to Ronald Thoyne, who bade her sit down and write a letter from his dictation, in which she informed the Midlington chemist that his daughter was dead, and asked what wishes he had to express regarding the child. The old man replied in person, but had proved a rather grim, forbidding and unpleasant visitor. He had refused to attend the funeral, or to pay for it, and would not even see the little girl; whereupon Thoyne had come to the rescue, settling all the bills, and arranging that Mrs. Greentree should take charge of the child for the ridiculously generous payment of two pounds a week.
I whistled when I heard that, and Stillman nodded his head.
“It seems a lot, doesn’t it?” he murmured. “If she wasn’t his daughter, I mean.”
The first lesson I learnt when I began my studies in crime and criminology—because crime is not merely the commission of an unlawful deed, but is of itself a complicated psychological problem—was to distrust the obvious. Crime itself is sub-normal, super-normal, extra-normal, anything but normal; and the obvious is always likely to be untrue because there are always people interested in arranging it.
For my part, I never believe what I see or hear until I have also proved it; and, accordingly, though it would seem to one’s ordinary intelligence a certainty that Ronald Thoyne was the father of Mary Grainger’s baby—possibly Mary Grainger’s husband, possibly not; but certainly in some intimate relationship with the dead girl and the living child—I did not take anything for granted. I had yet to learn the other side of the story. Not that I had any reason to suppose that Thoyne was better than his fellows, or that such an entanglement was impossible to him. He certainly had never occurred to me as a saint.
The story seemed fairly clear, though, of course, I lacked many details. Thoyne had met Mary Grainger either at the hospital in Bristol, or while he was lodging at Lepley’s farm, and then, after an interval regarding which we had no information, the girl was found to be living at his expense, and when she died he paid for the maintenance of her child. Added to all this was the other ascertained fact that Nora Lepley, in whose possession I had discovered the phial of prussic acid, was Mary Grainger’s dearest and most intimate friend.
But, then, what had all that to do with the death of Sir Philip Clevedon? Was there any connection at all between the two stories? Certainly I could discern none of even the most shadowy character, and yet I somehow felt that Thoyne was the pivot on which the whole business swung, though so far the key which would open the door of the mystery remained out of reach. It was interesting, too, to recollect that Thoyne’s serious courtship of Kitty Clevedon had not begun until Mary Grainger was safely out of the way—interesting, but whether or not it had any significance, I could not say.
I told Stillman to continue his inquiries, and myself returned to Cartordale.