"There must have been a motive for the act," Kelson observed. "Unless it was a sudden quarrel."
"There appears," Major Freeman put in, "to be no evidence whatever of anything leading up to that."
"No; the cause is so far quite mysterious," Henshaw said.
It seemed to Gifford that there was something of undisclosed knowledge behind his words, and he fell to wondering how far the motive was mysterious to him.
Morriston proceeded to acquaint Major Freeman with the discovered cause of the marks on the ladies' dresses, and they all went off to the lower room where the position of the stains was pointed out. Edith Morriston was no longer there.
"Miss Tredworth sat at this end of the sofa," Morriston explained, "and so the marks on her dress are clearly accounted for."
"And Miss Morriston?" Henshaw put the question in a tone which had in it,
Gifford thought, a touch of scepticism.
"Oh, my sister must have been in here too," Morriston replied. "Or how could her dress have been stained? Unless, indeed, she brushed against Miss Tredworth's or someone else's. That's clear."
There seemed no alacrity in Henshaw to accept the conclusion and he did not respond.
"I am glad this part of the mystery is so satisfactorily settled," the chief constable remarked. "Now we have the issue narrowed. Well, Sprules?"