"No, sir--once for all, no!" answered Harborough. "There's no necessity. I may be kept locked up for a bit, but the truth about this matter'll come out before ever I'm brought to trial--or ought to be. Leave me alone--I'm all right. All that bothers me now, my girl, is--you!" "Then don't bother," said Avice. "I'm going to stay with Mrs. Northrop. They've insisted on it." Brereton was going out of the cell, leaving father and daughter together, when he suddenly turned back. "You're a man of sense, Harborough," he said. "Come, now--have you got anything to suggest as to how you can be helped?" Harborough smiled and gave his counsel a knowing look. "Aye, sir!" he answered. "The best suggestion you could get. If you want to find out who killed Kitely--go back! Go back, sir--go inch by inch, through Kitely's life!" CHAPTER X THE HOLE IN THE THATCH Bent, taking his guest home to dinner after the police-court proceedings, showed a strong and encouraging curiosity. He, in common with all the rest of the townsfolk who had contrived to squeeze into the old court-house, had been immensely interested in Brereton's examination of Miss Pett. Now he wanted to know what it meant, what it signified, what was its true relation to the case? "You don't mean to say that you suspect that queer old atomy of a woman!" he exclaimed incredulously as they sat down to Bent's bachelor table. "And yet--you really looked as if you did--and contrived to throw something very like it into your voice, too! Man, alive!--half the Highmarket wiseacres'll be sitting down to their roast mutton at this minute in the full belief that Miss Pett strangled her master!" "Well, and why not?" asked Brereton, coolly. "Surely, if you face facts, there's just as much reason to suspect Miss Pett as there is to suspect Harborough. They're both as innocent as you are, in all probability. Granted there's some nasty evidence against Harborough, there's also the presumption--founded on words from her own lips--that Miss Pett expects to benefit by this old man's death. She's a strong and wiry woman, and you tell me Kitely was getting somewhat enfeebled--she might have killed him, you know. Murders, my dear fellow, are committed by the most unlikely people, and for curious reasons: they have been committed by quite respectable females--like Miss Pett--for nothing but a mere whim." "Do you really suspect her?" demanded Bent. "That's what I want to know." "That's what I shan't tell you," replied Brereton, with a good-humoured laugh. "All I shall tell you is that I believe this murder to be either an exceedingly simple affair, or a very intricate affair. Wait a little--wait, for instance, until Mr. Christopher Pett arrives with that will. Then we shall advance a considerable stage."