eredith."

"But what was her motive for committing such an atrocious crime?" asked
Captain Stanhill in bewilderment.

"Jealousy," responded Merrington promptly. "I saw the possibility of
that motive as soon as I heard Milly Saker's story, and learnt that
Hazel Rath had lived for some years in the moat-house. Young Heredith
and she must have been thrown together a lot before the war, and there
was doubtless a flirtation between them which probably developed into an
intrigue. There are all the materials at hand for it--a well-born idle
young man, a girl educated above her station, a lonely country-house,
and plenty of opportunity. I know the type of girl well. These
half-educated protegees of great ladies grow up with all the whims and
caprices of fine females, and their silly little heads are easily
turned. Probably this girl imagined that young Heredith was so
captivated by her pretty face that he would marry her. When she learnt
that she had been dropped for somebody else she brooded in secret until
her unbalanced nature led her to commit this terrible crime. Moreover,
she is the daughter of a woman with a queer past, who has been living
under an assumed name for the past fifteen years."

"Do you think mother and daughter have acted in collusion in this
murder?" Caldew asked.

"That is a question I would not care to answer offhand," responded
Merrington thoughtfully. "Undoubtedly the mother shielded the daughter
and lied to save her, and she obviously knew that the girl was absent
from her room at the time the murder was committed. How far this implies
guilty knowledge, or the acts of an accomplice, we are not yet in a
position to say. We will arrest the daughter, and detain the mother--for
the present, at all events. Whether we charge the mother as well as the
daughter will depend on our subsequent investigations. It will be no
novelty for the mother to be charged as accessory in a murder case,"
concluded Merrington, with a grim smile.

"We have no direct evidence that the girl went upstairs last night,"
said Caldew, with a reflective air. "Milly Saker did not see her going
upstairs, and apparently nobody saw her coming away."

"No direct evidence, it is true. But the presumptive evidence is so
strong that it is hardly needed. In the first place, Milly Saker saw her
going down the hall in the direction of the left wing just before the
murder was committed. Next day--this morning--the housekeeper sent Milly
Sake