"It may be, but I prefer to think it a significant fact," the professor returned; "but we'll go back to the theory again for the moment. I was very interested in Crosland and his sister, they were not exceedingly unlike each other. There was no portrait of Mrs. Crosland about, so I could not tell which of them took after the mother. Had you told me that Helen Crosland was the butler's daughter I should have believed you. Did you notice the likeness, Wigan?"
"No," I said with a smile. It seemed to me that the theory had got altogether out of hand.
"Well, it made me curious about the nephew," Quarles went on. "I wondered whether the dead man was the nephew and so I asked Crosland about a family skeleton, showed him that I had no belief in the burglar theory, and he quickly responded by saying there was nothing in the house worth stealing. I helped him out of a difficulty, and it was easy to talk about his mother and her rheumatism. So we got to the specialist Bush. You see the chief point was to find out the identity of the dead man. Now we get to two facts. He isn't the nephew who is still in Paris, and Bush is supposed to be in Yorkshire."
"Do you mean—"
"I am still theorizing," said Quarles. "There are no portraits at Clarence Lodge; you noticed a lack of portraits in Bush's flat, and you conclude by external evidence that his temperament is artistic. The dead man's hands were curiously capable and artistic. It struck me the moment I looked at them."
"I am not convinced, Professor."
"Nor was I," said Quarles, "so I mentioned the rheumatic specialist who had cured me."
"You, grandfather!" Zena exclaimed.
"Ah, you have evidently forgotten how I used to suffer," was the smiling answer. "I allowed Morrison to make a mistake on purpose and go to Clarence Lodge, his one idea to get an interview with Mrs. Crosland."
"And you have seen him since?" I asked.