“I’ll try and think, Booth. If I recollect I’ll send for you,” he answered.
“Thank you, m’lord,” the constable replied, and as I glanced covertly at Winsloe I saw that his face had fallen.
Would Scarcliff recall who he really was?
“To identify a dead person is always most difficult,” Winsloe remarked with assumed disinterestedness. “I’ve heard of cases where half a dozen different families have laid claim to one dead body—wives, mothers, children and intimate friends. No doubt lots of people are buried from time to time under names that are not their own. Richards, of any doctor, will tell you that a countenance when drawn by death is most difficult to recognise.”
By those remarks I saw that he was trying very ingeniously to arouse doubt within Jack’s mind, in order to prevent him making any statement. His attitude increased the mystery a hundredfold.
I recollected the secret Sybil had revealed to me on the previous afternoon when we had stood together in the Long Gallery—how she had told me that she intended to many Winsloe. What he had said now aroused my suspicions.
Winsloe knew the victim. That he had identified him I was fully convinced, and yet he held his tongue. What motive had he in that? Was he, I wondered, aware of the terrible truth?
Fortunately, I held in my possession those injudicious letters of Sybil’s, and that miniature; fortunately, too, I knew the real facts, and was thus enabled to watch the impression produced upon Winsloe by sight of the victim.
As we left the barn I walked by his side.
“A queer affair, isn’t it?” I remarked. “Strange that a man could be murdered here, close to the village in broad daylight, and nobody hear the shot!”