Page:The Ayrsham Mystery.pdf/8

Rh man's death—a heavily-leaded cane of foreign make, with solid silver ferrule.

"Now, I ask you, where in the world could a village carpenter pick up an instrument of that sort? Moreover no one ever saw such a thing in Sam Holder's hands or in his house. When he walked to the Fernhead Arms in order to try and find the old man, he had nothing of the sort in his hand, and in spite of the most strenuous efforts on the part of the police, the history of that cane was never traced.

"Then, there is a third reason why obviously Sam Holder was not guilty of the murder, though that reason is a moral one; I am referring to Mary Newton's attitude at the inquest. She lied, of that there could not be a shadow of doubt; she was determined to shield her former lover, and incriminated Sam Holder only because she wished to save another man.

"Obviously, old Newton went out on that dark wet night in order to meet someone in the lane, that someone could not have been Sam Holder, whom he met anywhere and everywhere, and every day in his own house.

"There! you see that Sam Holder was obviously innocent, that Captain Ledbury could not have committed the murder, that surely Mary Newton did not kill her own father, and that in such a case, common-sense should have come to the rescue, and not have left this case, what it now is, a tragic and impenetrable mystery."

[Here the reader should himself try to fathom the mystery.—.]

"But," I said at last, for indeed I was deeply mystified, "what does common-sense argue?—the case seems to me absolutely hopeless."

He surveyed his beloved bit of string for a moment, and his