The Stowmarket Mystery | Page 5

cannot be tried again, you know."
"I do not mean that. I want to establish my innocence; to compel society to reinstate me as a man profoundly wronged; above all, to marry the woman I love."
Brett amused himself by rapidly projecting several rings of smoke through a large one.
"So you really are innocent?" he said, after a pause.
David Hume rose from his chair, and reached for his hat, gloves, and stick.
"You have crushed my remaining hope of emancipation," he exclaimed bitterly. "You have the repute of being able to pluck the heart out of a mystery, Mr. Brett, so when you assume that I am guilty--"
"I have assumed nothing of the kind. You seem to possess the faculty of self-control. Kindly exercise it, and answer my questions, Did you kill your cousin?"
"No."
"Who did kill him?"
"I do not know."
"Do you suspect anybody ?"
"Not in the remotest degree."
"Did he kill himself?"
"That theory was discussed privately, but not brought forward at the trial. Three doctors said it was not worthy of a moment's consideration."
"Well, you need not shout your replies, and I would prefer to see you comfortably seated, unless, of course, you feel more at ease near the door."
A trifle shamefacedly, Hume returned to his former position near the fireplace--that shrine to which all the household gods do reverence, even in the height of summer. It is impossible to conceive the occupants of a room deliberately grouping themselves without reference to the grate.
Brett placed the open scrap-book on his knees, and ran an index finger along underlined passages in the manner of counsel consulting a brief.
"Why did you give your cousin this sword?"
"Because he told me he was making a collection of Japanese arms, and I remarked that my grandfather on my mother's side, Admiral Cunningham, had brought this weapon, with others, from the Far East. It lay for fifty years in our gun-room at Glen Tochan."
"So you met Sir Alan soon after his return home?"
"Yes, in London, the day he arrived. Came to town on purpose, in fact. Afterwards I travelled North, and he went to Beechcroft."
"How long afterwards? Be particular as to dates."
"It is quite a simple matter, owing to the season. Alan reached Charing Cross from Brindisi on December 20. We remained together--that is, lived at the same hotel, paid calls in company, visited the same restaurants, went to the same theatres--until the night of the 23rd, when we parted. It is a tradition of my family that the members of it should spend Christmas together."
"A somewhat unusual tradition in Scotland, is it not?"
"Yes, but it was my mother's wish, so my father and I keep the custom up."
"Your father is still living?"
"Yes, thank goodness!"
"He is now the sixth baronet?"
"He is not. Neither he nor I will assume the title while the succession bears the taint of crime."
"Did you quarrel with your cousin in London?"
"Not by word or thought. He seemed to be surprised when I told him of my engagement to Helen, but he warmly congratulated me. One afternoon he was a trifle short-tempered, but not with me."
"Tell me about this."
"His sister is, or was then, a rather rapid young lady. She discovered that certain money-lenders would honour her drafts on her brother, and she had been going the pace somewhat heavily. Alan went to see her, told her to stop this practice, and sent formal notice to the same effect through his solicitors to the bill discounters. It annoyed him, not on account of the money, but that his sister should act in such a way,"
"Ah, this is important! It was not mentioned at the trial."
"Why should it be?"
"Who can say? I wish to goodness I had helped your butler to raise Sir Alan's lifeless body. But about this family dispute. Was there a scene--tears, recriminations?"
"Not a bit. You don't know Rita. We used to call her Rita because, as boys, we teased her by saying her name was Margharita, and not Margaret"
"Why?"
"She has such a foreign manner and style." "How did she acquire them?"
"She was a big girl, six years old, and tall for her age, when her parents settled down in England. She first spoke Italian, and picked up Italian ways from her nurse, an old party who was devotedly attached to her. Even Alan was a good Italian linguist, and given to foreign manners when a little chap. But Harrow soon knocked them out of him. Rita retained them."
"I see. A curious household. I should have expected this young lady to upbraid her brother after the style of the prima donna in grand opera."
"No. He told me she laughed at him, and invited him to witness the trying on of a fancy dress costume, the 'Queen of Night,' which she wore at a bal masqué the night he was murdered."
"When did she get married?"
"Last January,