"Oh, I know all you would say," interrupted Claude hastily, with a frown; "but I am not prepared to admit your arguments. My mother is alive, my father is in existence, yet for twenty-five years I have looked on them as dead. Can you, then, wonder that I feel awkward toward them both; that I am by no means disposed to render them that filial affection which, you must admit, they but ill deserve?" "The question is so delicate that I can only hold my peace," said Tait, after a pause. "I admit what you say. Still they are your own flesh and blood." "I might answer you as _Hamlet_ did on a like occasion," replied Claude, with a bitter smile; "but a quotation will not mend matters. What I have to consider is the advisability of seeing my father again." "You must certainly see him again," said the other promptly. "Why?" "In the first place he is your father, whatever you may say, and in the second you had better tell him personally that you abandon further investigation of the case. After all, your object is gone; for though you might want to avenge the death of a parent, the murder of a scamp like Jeringham can matter nothing to you." "Oh, that I abandon the case goes without speaking," said Claude quickly, "and you----" "I act in the same way. The further we go into the case the more perplexing does it become. It is beyond me. Only at the Last Day will the mystery be solved. Still," added Tait meditatively, "I must admit a curiosity yet exists on my part to know who struck the blow. Of course your father's story corroborates Dicky Pental's, but the gardener mistook him for Jeringham by reason of the fancy dress." "Does this letter suggest anything to you?" "It narrows the field of inquiry, that is all. Your mother, your father, and Denis Bantry must necessarily be innocent, as they were in the house when the murder took place in the garden." "If they are innocent, who is guilty?" "We have a choice of two who were outside at the time. You can choose between Hilliston and Mona Bantry." "Mona Bantry kill her lover! How do you make that out?" "You forget your father's account of the scene in the sitting room," said Tait significantly; "then Mrs. Larcher asserted in the presence of Mona that she had come with Jeringham, furthermore, that he was in the garden. Mona, also jealous, acts as any other woman would have done in such a position. She goes into the garden to demand an explanation; there is a quarrel between her and Jeringham, and she kills him, then flies, not to hide her disgrace, but to evade the consequences of her act. That is a feasible theory, I think."