Part 10 (1/2)

”None at all, I am sorry to say,” Kelson answered readily. ”I may as well tell you how our very slight acquaintance with him came about.”

”If you please,” Henshaw responded, in a tone more of command than request.

Kelson, naturally ignoring his questioner's slightly offensive manner, thereupon related the circ.u.mstances of the encounter at the station-yard and of the subsequent drive to the town, merely softening the detail of their preliminary altercation. Henshaw listened alertly intent, it seemed, to seize upon any point which did not satisfy him.

”That was all you saw of my unfortunate brother?” he demanded at the end.

”We saw him for a few moments in the hall of the hotel just as we were starting,” Kelson answered.

”You drove here together? No?”

”No; your brother took an hotel carriage, and I drove in my own trap.”

”With Mr. ----?” he indicated Gifford, who up to this point had not spoken.

”No,” Gifford answered. ”I came on later. A suit-case with my evening things had gone astray--been carried on in the train, and I had to wait till it was returned.”

Henshaw stared at him for a moment sharply as though the statement had about it something vaguely suspicious, seemed about to put another question, checked himself, and turned about with a gesture of perplexity.

”I don't understand it at all,” he muttered. Then suddenly facing round again he said sharply to Gifford, ”Have you anything to add, sir, to what your friend has told me?”

”I can say nothing more,” Gifford answered.

Henshaw turned away again, and seemed as though but half satisfied.

”The facts,” he said in a lawyer-like tone, ”don't appear to lead us far.

But when ascertained facts stop short they may be supplemented. Apart from what is actually known--I ask this as the dead man's only brother--have either of you gentlemen formed any idea as to how he came by his death?”

He was looking at Morriston, his cross-examining manner now softened by the human touch.

”It has not occurred to me to look beyond what seems the obvious explanation of suicide,” Morriston answered frankly.

Henshaw turned to Kelson. ”And you, sir; have you any idea beyond the known facts?”

”None,” was the answer, ”except that he took his own life. The door locked on--”

Henshaw interrupted him sharply. ”Now you are getting back to the facts, Captain Kelson. I tell you the idea of my brother Clement taking his own life is to me absolutely inconceivable. Have you any idea, however far-fetched, as to what really may have happened?”

Kelson shook his head. ”None. Except I must say he looked to me the last man who would do such an act.”

”I should think so,” Henshaw returned decidedly. Then he addressed himself to Gifford. ”I must ask you, sir, the same question.”

”And I can give you no more satisfactory answer,” Gifford said.

”As a man with knowledge of the world as I take you to be?” Henshaw urged keenly.

”No.”

”At least you agree with your friend here, that my poor brother did not strike one as being a man liable to make away with himself?”