Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/283

Rh “Godfrey,” I said, “there seems to me to be one great objection to your theory that Tremaine killed Thompson. If Miss Croydon saw him do it, would she consent to associate with him? Wouldn’t her very knowledge of his crime give her a greater hold on him than he has on her sister?”

He paused to turn this over.

“Yes,” he admitted at last; “it would; but a woman might not think of that.”

“A desperate woman would think of everything,” I said; “and if your theory is right, both she and her sister must be very desperate.”

He nodded without answering, and sat staring before him, his brows knitted in perplexity.

There was one conclusive objection I might have urged, had I known of it—but I was not yet possessed of the story of the house-party. If Tremaine was the husband of Mrs. Delroy, how could he propose marriage to her sister? That was a rock, as yet unseen by us, which loomed ahead—which we could not avoid—upon which our theory must inevitably be dashed to pieces.

The train flashed past two or three big hotels, then the brakes were applied.

“Here’s Babylon,” said Godfrey, rousing himself from the profound revery into which my question had thrown him. “We’ll look in upon the prisoner, first, and cheer him up a bit.”

The jail was only a short distance from the station, and a five minutes’ walk brought us to it.

“We’re here in behalf of Mr. Drysdale,” Godfrey explained to the jailer, “This is Mr. Lester, of Gra-