“Well, Mr. Dalbrook, if there was such a man he would be an out-and-out blackguard.” “Yes, it would be a refinement of cruelty—a Satanic hate; but such a man might exist. Remember the murder of Lord Mayo—one of the wisest and most beloved of India’s rulers. The wretch who killed him had never seen his face till the day of the murder. He thought himself unjustly condemned, and he killed the man who represented the Power which condemned him. Might not some wrong-headed Englishman have the same vindictive feeling against an English judge?” “Yes, it is possible, no doubt.” “My cousin, Lady Carmichael, has another theory.” Theodore explained the positions of Lord Cheriton and the race that preceded him as owners of the soil, and Juanita’s suspicion of some unknown member of the Strangway family; but the detective rejected this notion as unworthy of professional consideration. “It is like a young lady to get such an idea into her head,” he said. “If the estate had changed hands yesterday—well, even then I shouldn’t suspect the former owners of wanting to murder the purchaser’s son-in-law; but when you reflect that Lord Cheriton has been in peaceful possession of the property for more than twenty years the idea isn’t worth a moment’s thought. What put such a fancy into the lady’s head, do you think, Mr. Dalbrook?” “Grief! She has brooded upon her loss until her sorrow has taken strange shapes. She thinks that it is her duty to help in bringing her husband’s murderer to justice. She has racked her brains to discover the motive of that cruel crime. She has conjured up the image of incarnate hatred, and she calls that image by the name of Strangway. I have pledged myself to act upon this idea of hers as if it were inspiration, and the first part of my task will be to find out any surviving member of Squire Strangway’s family. He only left three children, so the task ought not to be impossible.” “You don’t mean, sir, that you are going to act upon the young lady’s theory?” “I do mean it, Mr. Churton, and I want you to help me; or at any rate to give me a lesson. How am I to begin?” He laid his facts before the detective, reading over the notes which he had elaborated from Jasper Blake’s reminiscences and from his own recollection of various conversations in which the Strangways had figured. Churton listened attentively, nodded, or shook his head occasionally, and was master of every detail after that one hearing.