"It is pure speculation," I said.
"We have got to explain the theft of a dead body. I explain it by saying there was no dead body," said Quarles sharply, as if I were denying a self-evident fact. "I go still further. Judging by Coles's description of the man calling himself Sir Grenville, I doubt his courage for carrying through either the original fraud or the plan of escape. I believe his wife was the moving spirit throughout, and it is quite possible the drug was administered without her husband's knowledge."
"And where is the body now?" asked Zena.
"I do not know, but you tempt me to guesswork. Sir Grenville was a keen yachtsman, and probably he is on board his yacht still resting in his coffin, waiting for his wife to bring the antidote to the drug. His son and Mr. Thompson took the body that night in the car. There must have been two of them to deal with the burden, for I imagine the yacht had no crew on her at the time. They would hardly take others into their confidence. As everything had to be accomplished between eleven o'clock at night and before dawn the next day, I imagine the yacht was lying somewhere in the Thames estuary. I grant this is guesswork, Wigan."
"I do not see why it was necessary the theft should become known," I said.
"It would occasion delay in the settlement of the estate. It placed difficulties in the way of the rightful heir, It would help to throw a distinct doubt whether, in spite of all the evidence that might be forthcoming, Sir Grenville had committed fraud. There was even a possibility that the son might be left in possession after all. I daresay we shall learn more when we tackle Lady Rusholm and her son to-morrow."
When we went to Queen's Square next morning we found that Lady Rusholm was gone. She had, in fact, already gone when her son told us he was trying to persuade her to go. Mr. Thompson had left later in the day.
We found that even Quarles's guesswork was very near the actual facts, although he had hardly given Lady Rusholm sufficient credit for the working out of the scheme. The real heir, Sir John's nephew, had died in Ceylon before Baxter—that was Sir Grenville's real name—had married. On his death-bed he had entrusted his papers to Baxter to send to England, and Baxter had shown them to his future wife. The scheme came full grown into her head. They left Ceylon to meet again in India, and there they were married, Baxter giving his name as Grenville Rusholm. Thompson was their only confidant. He could not be left out because he had known all about Rusholm. There was one other who knew, but they believed him to be dead. He was a wanderer, somewhat of a ne'er-do-well, and to Thompson's consternation, after twenty years, he had turned up in Calcutta very much alive. He was going to England to expose the fraud. He did not suspect Thompson, who came to England first.
All this we heard from the son who for a short hour or two had called himself Sir Arthur Rusholm. He was able to prove quite conclusively that he was in entire ignorance of the fraud until Thompson's arrival. His mother confessed everything to him then. It was she who had planned how to get out of the difficulty. The duplicate coffin had been made at Harwich, for a yachtsman who was to be taken abroad to be buried, they had explained, but it was brought to Queen's Square and hidden in the small drawing-room as Quarles had surmised. It was only to spare his mother and father that the son had entered into the scheme, and I fancy Quarles was a little annoyed that he had not suspected this.
Mrs. Baxter was not caught. Indeed, there were many people who disbelieved the whole story of the fraud, even when the man who knew arrived from India—a very strong proof of Mrs. Baxter's charm and personality. I have heard from her son that she is in South America, and that her husband is not dead. So far as I am aware the new baronet has taken no steps to bring them to justice.