Page:Storer Clouston--Simon.djvu/144

140 the window. It is a bare possibility against the obvious and easy entrance by the door,—near which, remember, the body was found. Then, as I have pointed out, there was no robbery, and not a trace has been found of anybody outside that house with a motive for the crime."

"Except me."

"Unless you care to except yourself. But neither you nor the police have found any bad characters in the place."

"That's true enough," Ned admitted reluctantly.

"On the other hand, there were within the house two people with a very strong motive for committing the crime."

"I deny that!" cried Ned with a sudden gleam of ferocity in his eye that seemed to disconcert the lawyer.

"Deny it? You can scarcely deny that two young people, in love with one another and secretly engaged, with no money, and no chance of getting married, stood to gain everything they wanted by a death that gave them freedom to marry, a baronetcy, a thousand a year, and two thousand in cash besides?"

"Damn it, Mr. Rattar, is the fact that a farmer benefits by a shower any evidence that he has turned on the rain?"

"I have repeatedly said, Mr. Cromarty, that there is no definite evidence to convict anybody. But nothing would have been easier than making an end of Sir Reginald Cromarty, to anybody