“I can understand what you feel, but I assure you my questions are necessary. Now please tell me what exactly was the trouble between those two?” “Well,” Ruth said slowly, and an expression almost of pain showed on her face, “they had, I think—what is the phrase?—incompatibility of temperament. Mrs. Roper had a very sharp tongue and she was always nagging at Roper. He used to answer her in a soft tone with the nastiest and most cutting remarks you ever heard. Oh, it was horrible! Roper really was not a nice man, though he was always kind enough to me.” This was really all that French wanted, but he still persisted. “Can you by any chance tell me—I’m sorry for asking this question—but can you tell me whether Roper was attached to any other woman? Or if you don’t know that, have you ever heard his wife mention another woman’s name in anger? Just try to think.” “No, I never heard that.” “Have you ever heard them quarrelling?” “Once I did,” Ruth answered reluctantly. “It was dreadful! Roper said, ‘By ——,’ he used a terrible curse—‘I’ll do you in some day if I swing for it!’ And then Mrs. Roper answered so mockingly and bitterly that I had to put my hands over my ears.” “But she didn’t make any definite accusation?” “No, but wasn’t it dreadful? The poor people to have felt like that to one another! It must have been a terrible existence for them.” French agreed gravely as he thanked Ruth for her information, but inwardly he was chuckling with delight. He believed his theory was proved, and once it was established, his case was over. If the murderer lost his life in the fire Scotland Yard would no longer be interested in the affair and he, French, could go back to town with one more success added to the long list which already stood to his credit. He returned to the Thirsdale Arms, and getting a fire lighted in his room, settled down to put on paper the data he had amassed. CHAPTER TEN Whymper Speaks at Last By the time French had completed his notes the theory he had formed had become cut and dry and detailed. He was immensely delighted with it and with himself for having evolved it. Except for the failure to explain Roper’s death it seemed to him flawless, and for that one weak point he felt sure that a simple explanation existed. In the hope of lighting on some such he decided before putting away his papers to go once more in detail over the whole case as he now saw it. First there was the character of Roper. Roper was a clever and unscrupulous man with a cynical and discontented outlook on life. He was, in fact, the sort of man who might have planned and carried out the Starvel crime.