"My justification for so doing lay in the fact that in the MS.--supposing that any value was to be attached to its statements--there were certain allegations so seriously affecting the reputation of the widow of the murdered man that it seemed to me absolutely essential that the present head of the family should be made acquainted with them. It would then rest with him to decide whether any further action, and if so, of what kind, should be taken in the affair, or whether it should be allowed to rest where it does and remain an unsolved mystery till the end of time.
"Well, my interview with Mr. Melray came off in due course. As I think I have told you before, he is a man of strong feelings, although he shows little of them on the surface, and his burning desire to bring to justice the unknown person, or persons, who were concerned in his brother's tragic fate remains just as strong as ever it was. I found him more inclined than I confess I am to look upon the MS. (so to term that portion of the narrative found in the railway carriage) as a genuine recital of facts. To him it seems by no means unlikely that the assassin of his brother may, in very truth, have been a former lover of Mrs. Melray. Of course the question did not fail to put itself to him, as it had already put itself to me: Were the murderer and the unknown man who was killed in the railway accident one and the same person? And if so, was he also the writer of the MS.? But those were questions which he was no more able to answer than I had been.
"I had already cause for believing that the feeling with which Mr. Robert Melray regards his brother's widow is not of the most friendly kind. That to a certain extent she is inimical to him I cannot doubt. Consequently I was not much surprised when he avowed his intention of having the case reopened--to the extent, at least, if such a thing should prove possible, of testing the accuracy of the MS. so far as it concerned itself with the relations between 'Ernestine,' otherwise the wife, and her lover. But such a course was far easier to determine on than to carry into effect, and how to set about it was a point which puzzled both of us. Finally Mr. Melray and I parted without having come to an agreement as to any definite course of action. He has promised to call on me again three days hence. Meanwhile, at his request, I am going down to Solchester with the view of making a few cautious inquiries having reference to the existence there of any possible lover of Mrs. Melray prior to her marriage.
"And now to change the subject to something more personal to ourselves.
* * * * * *
"Yours unalterably,
"Philip Winslade.
"P.S.--If any further evidence were needed to prove that the story 'How, and Why' is based on the Loudwater Tragedy, one might find it in several of the thinly-veiled names which the anonymous writer has thought fit to make use of. Thus, in the story Mr. Melray becomes 'Mr. Melville'; the head clerk, Mr. Cray, is changed into 'Mr. Day'; Silston, the chief constable, becomes 'Dilston'; while, in place of Merehampton as the locale of the narrative, we are introduced to the town of 'Hampton Magna.'"