“The next suggestion is that some person was prowling about with the intention of abstracting trinkets and other valuables from the drawing-room—in an unguarded moment when the room might happen to be empty—and I admit that the present fashion of covering drawing-room tables and cabinets with valuables of every description is calculated to suggest plunder; but that kind of thing would be probable enough in London rather than in the country, and nothing is more unlikely than that a prowler of that order would resort to murder. Again, the manner in which the body was found, with the open book lying close to the hand that had held it, goes far to prove that Sir Godfrey was shot as he sat reading—and at a time when a burglar could have no motive for shooting him.” “Do you think it was the act of a lunatic?” “No, my Lord, for in that event the murderer would have been heard of or found before now. The gardens, park, and chase have been most thoroughly searched under my superintendence. It is not possible for a lap-dog to be hidden anywhere within this demesne. The neighbouring villages—solitary cottages—commons and copses—have been also submitted to a searching investigation—the police all over the country are on the alert. Of course the crime is still of very recent date. Time to us seems longer than it really is.” “No doubt, no doubt! I can find no other hypothesis than that the act was done by a madman—such a motiveless murder—a man sitting by a window reading—shot by an unknown hand from a garden terrace—remote from the outer world. Were we in Ireland the crime might seem commonplace enough. Sir Godfrey was a landowner—and that alone is an offence against the idle and the lawless in that unhappy country,—but here, in the midst of an orderly, God-fearing population——” “Had Sir Godfrey no enemy, do you think, my Lord?” asked the detective, gravely. “The crime has the look of a vendetta.” “There never was a young man, owner of a considerable estate, more universally beloved. His tenants adore him—for as a landlord he has been exceptionally indulgent.” “He may have granted too much in some quarters, and too little in others.” “No, no. He has been judicious in his liberality, and he has a capital bailiff, an old man who was a servant on this estate many years ago.” “But there are other influences,” said the detective, musingly. “Whenever I meet with a crime of this kind—motiveless apparently—I remember the Eastern Prince—I think he was one of those long-headed Orientals, wasn’t he, my Lord, who used to ask, ‘Who is she?’ In a thoroughly dark case I always suspect a woman behind the curtain. Sir Godfrey had been independent of all control for a good many years—and a young man of fortune, handsome, open-hearted, with only a mother to look after him—well, my Lord, _you_ know the kind of thing that generally happens in such cases.” “You mean that my son-in-law may have been involved in some disreputable intrigue?”