en, do you think it would have passed unnoticed? You,
Edith, Betty--I myself--would have cast an uneasy eye. When we were
looking about, some months ago, at the time of your sister-in-law's
visit, for a possible man, the thought of Leonard Boyce never entered
our heads. The only man you could rush at was young Randall Holmes, and
I laughed you out of the idea. Just throw your mind back, Anthony, and
try to recall any suspicious incident. You can't."

I paused rhetorically, expecting a reply. None came. He just sat
looking at me in a dead way. I continued my special pleading; and the
more I said, the more was I baffled by his dead stare and the more
unconvincing platitudes did I find myself uttering. Some people may be
able to speak vividly to a deaf and dumb creature. On this occasion I
tried hard to do so, and failed. After a while my words dribbled out
with difficulty and eventually ceased. At last he spoke, in the dull,
toneless way of a dead man--presuming that the dead could speak:

"You may talk till you're black in the face, but you know as well as I
do that the man told the truth--or practically the truth. What he said
he saw, he saw. What motives have been at the back of his miserable
mind, I don't know. You say I can't recall suspicious incidents. I can.
I'll tell you one. I came across them once--about a month before the
thing happened--among the greenhouses. I think we were having one of
our tennis parties. I heard her using angry words, and when I appeared
her face was flushed and there were tears in her eyes. She was taken
aback for a second and then she rushed up to me. 'I think he's
perfectly horrid. He says that Jingo--' pointing to the dog; you
remember Jingo the Sealingham--she was devoted to him--he died last
year--'He says that Jingo is a mongrel--a throw back.' Boyce said he
was only teasing her and made pretty apologies. I left it at that. Hit
a dog or a horse belonging to Althea, and you hit Althea. That was her
way. The incident went out of my mind till this morning. Other
incidents, too. One thinks pretty quick at times. Again, this scoundrel
hit me on the raw. Boyce never wrote to us. Sent us through his mother
a conventional word of condolence. Edith and I were hurt. That was one
of the things that made me speak so angrily of him when he wouldn't
come and dine with us."

Once more I pleaded. "Your Sealingham incident doesn't impress me. Why
not take it at its face value? As for the letter o