nknown. It was impossible that both were
speaking the truth.

With infinite satisfaction he heard Giuseppe's voice, and even an
element of grim amusement attended the Italian's shock and his
subsequent snipe-like antics as he leaped to safety before an
anticipated revolver barrage.

The adventure told Brendon much and his first inclination was to
arrest Doria on the following morning; but that desire swiftly
passed. A surer strategy presented itself. From the first
ambition--to get Jenny's husband under lock and key--his mind leaped
to a more workmanlike proposition. He suspected, however, that
Giuseppe might take the initiative and deny him any further
opportunity of bettering their acquaintance; and that night as he
fell asleep with an aching shin and cheek, Mark endeavoured to
consider the situation as it must appear from Doria's angle of
vision. Much temporal comfort resulted for him from this
examination.

It seemed clear that Doria and Redmayne were working to destroy
Albert Redmayne for their common advantage. Let the old book lover
disappear and Robert and his niece would be the last of the
Redmaynes to share the fortune of the vanished brothers. Robert,
indeed, could have no open part in these advantages, for he was
outlawed; but it would be possible for him, in process of time,
when Jenny inherited all three estates and Robert, Bendigo and
Albert were alike held to be deceased in the eyes of the law, to
share the fortune in secret with his niece and her husband. This
view explained the prescience of Peter Ganns and his surprise that
Albert Redmayne should still be in the land of the living. Ganns,
however, was proved mistaken in one vital particular, for there
could no longer be any reasonable doubt that Robert Redmayne still
lived.

Utterly mistaken as Brendon's theories ultimately proved to be, they
bore to his weary brain the stamp of truth and he next proceeded to
consider Doria's future attitude before the problem now awaiting him
and his companion in crime. Doria could not be sure that he had been
recognized or even seen when approaching the supposed corpse of
Redmayne's victim; and, in any case, under the darkness, no man
might certainly swear that it was Doria who came to dig the grave
and dispose of the body. Brendon confessed to himself that only
Giuseppe's startled oath had proved his presence, and Jenny's
husband might well be expected to offer a sound alibi if arrested.
He judged, therefor