. "It weighed very
heavily in favour of Timothy Beddingfield. Added to which you must also
remember that, as far as he was concerned, the Hon. Robert de Genneville
was to him the goose with the golden eggs.

"The 'De Genneville peerage case' had brought Beddingfield's name in
great prominence. With the death of the claimant all hopes of prolonging
the litigation came to an end. There was a total lack of motive as far
as Beddingfield was concerned."

"Not so with the Earl of Brockelsby," said Polly, "and I've often
maintained--"

"What?" he interrupted. "That the Earl of Brockelsby changed clothes
with Beddingfield in order more conveniently to murder his own brother?
Where and when could the exchange of costume have been effected,
considering that the Inverness cape and Glengarry cap were in the hall
of the Castle Hotel at 9.15, and at that hour and until ten o'clock Lord
Brockelsby was at the Grand Hotel finishing dinner with some friends?
That was subsequently proved, remember, and also that he was back at
Brockelsby Castle, which is seven miles from Birmingham, at eleven
o'clock sharp. Now, the visit of the individual in the Glengarry
occurred some time after 10 p.m."

"Then there was the disappearance of Beddingfield," said the girl
musingly. "That certainly points very strongly to him. He was a man in
good practice, I believe, and fairly well known."

"And has never been heard of from that day to this," concluded the old
scarecrow with a chuckle. "No wonder you are puzzled. The police were
quite baffled, and still are, for a matter of that. And yet see how
simple it is! Only the police would not look further than these two
men--Lord Brockelsby with a strong motive and the night porter's
hesitation against him, and Beddingfield without a motive, but with
strong circumstantial evidence and his own disappearance as condemnatory
signs.

"If only they would look at the case as I did, and think a little about
the dead as well as about the living. If they had remembered that
peerage case, the Hon. Robert's debts, his last straw which proved a
futile claim.

"Only that very day the Earl of Brockelsby had, by quietly showing the
original ancient document to his brother, persuaded him how futile were
all his hopes. Who knows how many were the debts contracted, the
promises made, the money borrowed and obtained on the strength of that
claim which was mere romance? Ahead nothing but ruin, enmity with his
brother, his