Page:The Avenger.djvu/39

Rh "But, after all," the Colonel remarked, "he scarcely knew the fellow! Just nodded to him on the stairs, and that sort of thing. Why, there isn't a shadow of a motive!"

"We can't be sure of that, Colonel," Heneage remarked quietly. "I wonder how much we really know of the inner lives of even our closest friends? I fancy that we should be surprised if we realized our ignorance!"

The Colonel stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.

"That may be true," he said, "of a good many of us. Wrayson, however, never struck me as being a particularly secretive sort of chap."

"Unfortunately, that counts for very little," Heneage declared. "The things which surprise us most in life come often from the most unlikely people. We none of us mean to be deceitful, but a perfectly honest life is a luxury which few of us dare indulge in."

The Colonel regarded him gravely.

"I hope," he said, "that you don't mean that you consider Wrayson capable"

"I wasn't thinking of Wrayson at all," Heneage interrupted. "I was generalizing. But I must say this. I think that, given sufficient provocation or motive, there isn't one of us who wouldn't be capable of committing murder. A man's outer life is lived according to the laws of circumstances and society: his inner one no one knows anything about, except himself—and God!"

"Heneage," Mason sighed, "is always cynical after '.

Heneage shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

"No!" he said, "I am not cynical. I simply have a weakness for the truth. You will find it rather a hard material to collect if you set out in earnest. But to