CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LOISETTE IS VINDICATED
Ailsa caught her breath with a faint, little, sobbing sigh at this, and even if the moon had not chosen just then to slip out from the screen of the enveloping clouds and throw a dusk of silver over everything, so that he could see her face and the deep look of relief in her uplifted eyes, he still would have known what a load his declaration of the General's innocence had lifted from her mind.
"Oh, I am so glad," she said fervently; "so very, very glad! Do you know, I made sure from the manner in which you spoke that, horrible as it seemed, it must surely be he; that you must certainly have discovered something which left no room for doubt in your own mind; otherwise you would not have told me all these terrible things regarding the forged letter and the drugged drink and his meeting with Lady Clavering at the wall door. And now to know that you do not suspect him, that you are sure it was not he that killed De Louvisan, ah, I can't tell you how glad I am."
"How loyal you are to your friends," he said admiringly. "You needn't assure me of your gladness; I can read it in your voice and face. No, General Raynor is not guilty, although I am very positive that he not only was out last night, but was actually at Gleer Cottage; but I am absolutely certain his was not the hand that killed De Louvisan. I will even go further, and say that it would not surprise me to learn that he was not even present at the time of the killing, though there is, of course, always the possibility, in the light of my theory of the whys and wherefores of the case, that he was."
"You have a theory regarding it, then?"
"Yes. I had a vague one in the beginning that became more pronounced when I heard Lady Clavering speak of 'letters' in her interview with the General at the wall door to-night. She also spoke of Margot, recollect. And I have said from the first that a woman was in it."
"And you think that she—that Margot—did it?"
"Did what—the murder? No, I do not. As a matter of fact, I am beginning to believe that the presence of that crafty female in England, and in this particular neighbourhood at this particular time, may possibly have led me to leap to a conclusion which is a long way from the truth. That she meant to see De Louvisan, and, with the aid of her band, deal pretty harshly with him—give him the 'traitor's spike,' in fact—I feel very nearly positive; but I am now beginning to realize there is a possibility that the scrap of pink gauze may not have come from Margot's dress, and that she may not have been at Gleer Cottage last night, after all. In other words, that the woman in the case is not Margot."