and listen to the band until dinner.
Really, we have had a most enjoyable afternoon."

He went out, placid and smiling, and Margaret sobbed plentifully--until it
became necessary to go to her room and remove the traces of her grief. So
it may be assumed that her tears were not all occasioned by grief for the
contemplated loss of her ill-chosen mate.

When the others returned from their excursion, Frazer explained to them
all that was needful with reference to Capella's visit. Helen was very
outspoken in her indignation, and even the rector condemned the Italian's
conduct in plain terms.

He warmly approved of the resolution arrived at by Robert and David to
return to London next day, and not leave Brett until a definite stage had
been reached in the strangely intricate inquiry they were embarked on.

They sat late into the night, discussing the pros and cons of the
situation; yet among these five people, fully cognisant as they were of
nearly every fact known to the able barrister who had taken charge of
their affairs, not one even remotely guessed the pending sequel.

Whilst they were talking and hoping for some favourable outcome, the night
express from York was hurrying Capella to a weird conclusion of his
efforts to discredit his wife. Had he but known what lay before him he
would have left the train at the first station and hastened to Margaret,
to grovel at her feet and beg her forgiveness for the foul aspersions cast
upon her.

It was too late.

CHAPTER XXXI

TO BEECHCROFT

Thenceforth, as the French say, events marched. Robert Frazer faithfully
recounted Margaret's statement to the barrister and the detective. The
"documents," copies of which Ooma sent to the ill-fated woman whose sudden
accession to wealth had proved so unlucky for her, were evidently those
stolen from the drawer in the writing-desk at Beechcroft.

Here, at last, was the motive of the murder laid bare.

The Japanese, by some inscrutable means, became aware that the young
baronet possessed these papers, and held them _in terrorem_ over his
reputed sister. In the hands of a third person, an outsider, they were
endowed with double powers for mischief. He could threaten the woman with
exposure, the man with the revelation of a discreditable family secret.

He visited the library in order to commit the theft, probably acting with
greater daring because he mistook the sleeping David for his cousin.
Having successfully wrenched