“You saw Leonard Langton at Calais,” I remarked.
“He told you that!” gasped the dead man’s servant, with a start. “What did he say of me?”
“Nothing, except what was good. He told me that you were a trusted servant of the Professor.”
“Ah, my poor, dear master!” echoed the man, his face turned thoughtfully away towards the afterglow. “If I knew—ah, Madonna mia, if I only knew the truth!”
“You suspect Kirk?” I suggested. “Why not tell me more?”
“I suspect him no more than I suspect others,” was his calm reply. “Be certain, signore, that there is much more behind that terrible affair than you suspect. There was some strong motive for my poor master’s death, depend upon it! But,” he asked, “where did you meet the Signor Langton?”
Briefly I related the circumstances of Kirk’s presence in the house, his escape, and the discovery I afterwards made in the laboratory.
“You actually found the evidences of the crime had been destroyed!” cried the man. Yet my sharp vigilance detected that beneath his surprise he breathed more freely when I announced the fact that the body of the Professor was no longer existent.
“Yes,” I said, after a slight pause, during which my eyes were fixed upon his. “Destroyed—and by Kershaw Kirk, whom I found alone there, with the furnace burning.”
The Italian shook his head blankly. Whether he held suspicion of Kirk or not I was unable to determine. They had been friends. That I well knew. But to me it appeared as though they had met in secret after the tragedy, and had quarrelled.