"Not for many a long year yet. Here's a letter I've written to the papers, signed 'A Lawyer,' showing up the weak points in the case, and appealing for sympathy and a surer kind of justice. Just finished the fourth copy as you came in. My lad is down-stairs; he will take the letters to the newspaper offices, and to-morrow they will be all over the country. Don't lose heart, Fred; there is some infernal mystery at the bottom of this affair, and I mean to get at it. You asked the poor girl about the dresses Mrs. Pamflett was in the habit of wearing?" "Yes; and she said she never saw the woman in a blue dress." "Is she still positive about the brooch?" "She has not the slightest doubt. When her father turned her from his house she left the brooch behind her." "Then it must have been placed in the grounds by some person--deliberately placed there." "Unless it was dropped by accident." "If so, it must have been a female who dropped it. Either way, the person who dropped or placed it where it was found can be no other than Mrs. Pamflett. Let us suppose that. If dropped by accident, it proves that she must have been near the spot where the miser was murdered; if placed there by her, it must have been placed there for a motive. Miss Farebrother adheres to the truth of her story as to what occurred on the night of her visit to Parksides?" "Yes." "She did not see Mrs. Pamflett?" "No." "But Mrs. Pamflett may have seen her. Let us assume that she or her son committed the deed. She sees Miss Farebrother in the grounds, and overhears, perhaps, what passes between the poor young lady and her father. She witnesses Miss Farebrother's departure from Parksides. After that the murder is committed. Then, seeing Miss Farebrother's veil on the ground--in Miss Farebrother's condition there are a thousand reasonable hypotheses to account for its having become detached from her hat--the idea presents itself to Mrs. Pamflett to strengthen the case against Miss Farebrother by placing the brooch also near the dead body." "You do not forget the female in a blue dress that Tom Barley saw in the grounds?" "I do not; and I cannot account for it. Did you ask Miss Farebrother anything about the man who, according to Mrs. Pamflett, had been in the habit for years of visiting Miser Farebrother secretly at night?" "To her knowledge, no such man ever presented himself, and no such visits ever took place." "She has no remembrance of anything of the kind occurring?" "Not the slightest." "It is inexplicable. There's some one at the door. Come in!" It was Robert Lethbridge, who came to say that Tom Barley was on duty, and would not be able to visit Fred Cornwall before the morning; but if they wished to speak to him at once they would find him on his beat. "No," said Garden; "we will not go to him. I want him when his time is his own, so that we can talk quietly and uninterruptedly. Go and tell him to come and see us at nine o'clock in the morning."