get. If you want
to find out who killed Kitely--go back! Go back, sir--go inch by inch,
through Kitely's life!"

CHAPTER X

THE HOLE IN THE THATCH

Bent, taking his guest home to dinner after the police-court
proceedings, showed a strong and encouraging curiosity. He, in common
with all the rest of the townsfolk who had contrived to squeeze into the
old court-house, had been immensely interested in Brereton's examination
of Miss Pett. Now he wanted to know what it meant, what it signified,
what was its true relation to the case?

"You don't mean to say that you suspect that queer old atomy of a
woman!" he exclaimed incredulously as they sat down to Bent's bachelor
table. "And yet--you really looked as if you did--and contrived to throw
something very like it into your voice, too! Man, alive!--half the
Highmarket wiseacres'll be sitting down to their roast mutton at this
minute in the full belief that Miss Pett strangled her master!"

"Well, and why not?" asked Brereton, coolly. "Surely, if you face facts,
there's just as much reason to suspect Miss Pett as there is to suspect
Harborough. They're both as innocent as you are, in all probability.
Granted there's some nasty evidence against Harborough, there's also the
presumption--founded on words from her own lips--that Miss Pett expects
to benefit by this old man's death. She's a strong and wiry woman, and
you tell me Kitely was getting somewhat enfeebled--she might have killed
him, you know. Murders, my dear fellow, are committed by the most
unlikely people, and for curious reasons: they have been committed by
quite respectable females--like Miss Pett--for nothing but a mere whim."

"Do you really suspect her?" demanded Bent. "That's what I want to
know."

"That's what I shan't tell you," replied Brereton, with a good-humoured
laugh. "All I shall tell you is that I believe this murder to be either
an exceedingly simple affair, or a very intricate affair. Wait a
little--wait, for instance, until Mr. Christopher Pett arrives with that
will. Then we shall advance a considerable stage."

"I'm sorry for Avice Harborough, anyway," remarked Bent, "and it's
utterly beyond me to imagine why her father can't say where he was last
night. I suppose there'd be an end of the case if he'd prove where he
was, eh?"

"He'd have to account for every minute between nine and ten o'clock,"
answered Brereton. "It would be no good, for instance, if we proved to a
jury that