d she might be the guilty person?" demanded Brereton,
maliciously. "Come, now, Mr. Pett! You don't know all that I know!"

Pett fell back, staring doubtfully at Brereton's curled lip, and
wondering whether to take him seriously or not. And Brereton laughed and
went off--to reflect, five minutes later, that this was no laughing
matter for Harborough and his daughter, and to plunge again into the
maze of thought out of which it was so difficult to drag anything that
seemed likely to be helpful.

He interviewed Harborough again before he was taken back to Norcaster,
and again he pressed him to speak, and again Harborough gave him a
point-blank refusal.

"Not unless it comes to the very worst, sir," he said firmly, "and only
then if I see there's no other way--and even then it would only be for
my daughter's sake. But it won't come to that! There's three weeks
yet--good--and if somebody can't find out the truth in three weeks----"

"Man alive!" exclaimed Brereton. "Your own common-sense ought to tell
you that in cases like this three years isn't enough to get at the
truth! What can I do in three weeks?"

"There's not only you, sir," replied Harborough. "There's the
police--there's the detectives--there's----"

"The police and the detectives are all doing their best to fasten the
crime on you!" retorted Brereton. "Of course they are! That's their way.
When they've safely got one man, do you think they're going to look for
another? If you won't tell me what you were doing, and where you were
that night, well, I'll have to find out for myself."

Harborough gave his counsel a peculiar look which Brereton could not
understand.

"Oh, well!" he said. "If _you_ found it out----"

He broke off at that, and would say no more, and Brereton presently left
him and walked thoughtfully homeward, reflecting on the prisoner's last
words.

"He admits there is something to be found out," he mused. "And by that
very admission he implies that it could be found out. Now--how?
Egad!--I'd give something for even the least notion!"

Bent's parlour-maid, opening the door to Brereton, turned to a locked
drawer in the old-fashioned clothes-press which stood in Bent's hall,
and took from it a registered letter.

"For you, sir," she said, handing it to Brereton. "Came by the noon
post, sir. The housekeeper signed for it."

Brereton took the letter into the smoking-room and looked at it with a
sudden surmise that it might have something t