"Good God!" I cried—"where is all this leading us, Gatton?"
"It is leading us slowly to the truth, Mr. Addison, and that truth, when we come to it, is going to be more horrible than we even suspect. Passing over much of Mr. Hardacre's evidence, I come to the death, in Switzerland, of Mr. Roger Coverly, under circumstances so obscure that I fear we shall never know the particulars. Of one thing, however, I am assured: there was foul play."
"You mean that Roger Coverly was—murdered?"
"I really don't doubt it," replied Gatton, who, having filled his pipe, now lighted it. "I believe he was the first victim."
"The first victim?"
"Mr. Addison, I agree with the late Sir Burnham's solicitor, that the spider at the heart of this web is Dr. Damar Greefe. The shock of his son's premature death led to a collapse from which Sir Burnham never recovered, and Friar's Park entered upon the final phase during which it was occupied by Lady Burnham who seems to have been wholly under the influence of this Eurasian doctor."
"But, my dear Gatton!" I cried—"where is Lady Burnham?"
"In my opinion, dead!" he answered solemnly. "Oh, it sounds preposterous, but in the case of this lonely woman who had apparently no living relatives and who was estranged from Sir Marcus and the other members of her husband's family, it was no very difficult matter to hush up the fact of her death."
"But, Gatton, you don't mean that she, too, met with foul play?"
"Most certainly I don't! It is as clear as day that the whole object of this elaborate secrecy was to hide the fact of her death! She was infinitely more useful alive than dead, Mr. Addison; and they hoped to keep up the solemn farce until—"