"Well," replied the keen, alert man, who, again seated in his writing-chair, bent slightly towards his visitor, "well, as you've asked me to reveal all I know, Fetherston, I will do so, even though I feel some reluctance, in face of the fact that Miss Orlebar is your friend."
"That makes no difference," declared the other firmly. "I am anxious to clear up the mystery of Bellairs' death."
"Then I think that you need seek no farther for the correct solution," replied Trendall quietly, looking into the other's pale countenance. "Your lady friend killed him—in order to preserve her own secret."
"But what was her secret?"
"We have that yet to establish. It must have been a serious one for her to close his lips in such a manner."
"But they were good friends," declared Fetherston. "He surely had not threatened to expose her?"
"I do not think he had. My own belief is that she became madly jealous of Lady Blanche, and at the same time, fearing the exposure of her secret to the woman to whom her lover had become engaged, she took the subtle means of silencing him. Besides——" And he paused without concluding his sentence.
"Besides what?"
"From the first you suspected Sir Hugh's stepdaughter, eh?"
Fetherston hesitated. Then afterwards he nodded slowly in the affirmative.