"And then?"
Quarles paused for a moment.
"If Gilson watched him closely, as he probably did, he may some day, in a lucid interval, confirm my surmise. I think Simon Judd stood before the lifted veil when he returned to Cross Roads Farm again; that on the spot where so many familiar hours had been spent he saw his brother once more, and remorse came to him. The gold had gone, you see. Every detail of that tragic night was recalled in a moment of time, and, terror seizing him, he clutched himself by the throat and fell dead."
"I think you are right, dear," Zena said solemnly.
"But how is it no one knew him?" I asked.
"Few people did know him, and he had passed through five years of debauchery. Find someone who knew of some peculiarity he had. Coleman might help you here. Gilson knew him. Didn't he tell you Simon Judd was buried? That would be a day or so after the tramp had been buried in Hanley."
This case was certainly one of my failures, although I had to accept praise when both Coleman and Gilson were released.
It happened, too, that Coleman knew that, as a young man, his Uncle Simon had undergone an operation, the scar of which the doctor found on the tramp's body.
Jim Gilson was never lucid enough to give a detailed account of what happened when Simon Judd returned to the farm, but piecing together statements he made at intervals there is little doubt that Quarles's surmise was not very far from the truth.