Margot's bracelet in the pocket of Harry Raynor's evening coat was something rather more significant than Margot's picture and Margot's letters in Harry Raynor's tobacco jar, for an evening coat consorted well with an evening frock, and some woman who was not Ailsa Lorne, nor yet Lady Katharine Fordham, had worn an evening frock at Gleer Cottage last night.
Where was Harry Raynor last night? That, too, would want looking into in the light of present events. And possessing two evening suits, which had that interesting young gentleman worn yesterday? This one, which he had lent to Cleek, or the one he would himself wear at dinner to-night? A great deal would depend upon that point—as great a deal as sometimes sends men to the gallows. For whensoever he had last worn this suit, this bracelet was put in the pocket of it. Upon that point there could be no shadow of doubt; for although he had forgotten all about the thing—as evidenced by his leaving it in the pocket when sending the clothes to Cleek—he could not possibly have put this coat on again without noticing how abominably the thing sat upon the wearer, and discovering the cause of it.
And if he had worn this particular suit last night, and Margot could be proved to have visited Gleer Cottage at, or about, the time of the murder——Cleek shut off that train of thought, and puckered up his lips until they were white and full of creases, and sighed inwardly, thinking of the loving mother and of the added cross for the shoulders of the bitterly disappointed father, a man and a hero, a soldier and a gentleman, cursed with such offspring as this!
"And the little beast would sacrifice the pair of them for the price of a night's orgy, and turn suspicion even against his mother to save his own skin if he were in danger," was his unspoken summing up of Harry Raynor's character. "Gad, how little there is in heredity, after all, when we so often see eagles breeding jackdaws and lions bringing forth mice!"
The dinner gong sounded again; and it was only then that he realized how long a time he had spent mooning over a stolen bracelet and a gnat that seemed suddenly to have grown into a bird of prey.
He turned round on his heel and switched off the light. "A bombshell for you, my laddie!" he said in the soundless words of thought, as he put the bracelet into the tail pocket of his coat and nodded as if young Raynor were there in person to be addressed; then he walked out and shut the door behind him, and went down to the business of dining.
He found the General and his son and Mrs. Raynor and Ailsa awaiting him in the drawing-room, and was not—considering what he now knew—at all surprised to learn that Lady Katharine had developed a bad headache, gone to bed, and wished no dinner at all.
"I can't think what's come over her," said Ailsa when she made this announcement.
"Oh, can't you?" said young Raynor with a cackling laugh. "Lord! women don't look far beneath the surface of things, do they, Barch? Who wouldn't go to bed with a headache after a visit from a goat like Geoff Clavering?"
"Harry, dearest, do think what you are saying, and before whom, darling!" bleated apologetically his adoring mother. "You mustn't mind him, Mr. Barch; he is so full of spirit, the dear boy."