“And in the meantime, what is going to be done about the business?” some one asked.
“So far as I can make out,” the quidnunc answered, “it is going to be left to develop.”
“Is Scotland Yard going to take it up?”
“I don’t see how they can.”
“Not against Countess Alexia von Rohnburg?”
“My dear Monty,” Greetland returned, “as things stand, they can’t do it. They have nothing to go upon. You must remember, what the public never will understand, that moral proof does not necessarily constitute legal evidence. Granted that this ornamental stiletto, which has been found, belonged to the Countess, also that she and Reggie Martindale were together alone in the room not long before the tragedy was discovered, it establishes a primâ facie case against her, but, so far, nothing more.”
“Circumstantial evidence, surely?”
“Yes, but with an important link missing from the chain. You see a good deal might have occurred between the moment of the Countess Alexia’s leaving the room and the finding of what happened. No, my dear friends, it looks very like what we all think it, but there is an important section of the affair still covered in mystery.”
Greetland had made it his business to work up the subject; it was his vocation to be glib and authoritative on every likely topic of the day.
“The Countess’s position is not exactly enviable,” a man suggested.