“Quite soon afterwards my husband rented a bungalow, as you know, and came to live at Paston Whitchurch. I think he wanted to keep a watch over me; I think he also wanted to give me the impression that he was behaving better. But, as he always went away for the week-ends, I didn’t feel much interested about that. Once or twice he asked me to come back to him, but of course I wouldn’t. When Mr. Davenant came back from the war, he took a house at Paston Whitchurch too, but he could only come there from Saturday to Monday because of his work up in London. I think he just wanted to be near me, and to be able to help me if I was in trouble. And that was the state of things up to last Tuesday. Only my husband had foreseen his bankruptcy, and was making desperate efforts to get me to come back to him. The horrible thing was that I had no hold over him—the secret which would have ruined him once had no terrors for him then—so I’d nothing but his bare word to depend on. And I’m afraid that wasn’t much to go upon. “I knew nothing about what happened on Tuesday till I saw it in the papers. I still don’t know how or why the police got the idea that it was Mr. Davenant who murdered my husband. Of course, if they came to know all that I’ve been telling you now, they’d think it was a certainty. But I’ve told you about it, because I thought it was best to let you know everything, and then perhaps you could help.” “Of course I should be awfully glad to do anything I could to—well, to establish the innocence of an innocent man. Was that your idea, Miss Rendall-Smith?” “Mr. Reeves, do you believe at all in a woman’s intuitions? Probably you don’t, because you go in for clues and all that sort of thing. But I assure you I’m as certain that Mr. Davenant never laid a hand on my husband as I’m certain that you’re sitting in that chair. I can’t explain the feeling; I can’t analyse it; it’s like a sort of sixth sense to me. I’ve always had these strong intuitions, and they’ve always been right. So I’m asking you, quite fearlessly, to work on this case as hard as you can, and examine all the evidence you’ve got. I’m perfectly certain that the effect of that will be to prove Mr. Davenant’s innocence. I know he ran away and hid himself; but after all, that’s a thing an innocent man may easily do if he’s afraid of being charged with murder.” “I was saying the same thing to my friends only this afternoon.” “Mr. Reeves, you’re wonderful! And, of course, you’ve got to remember this. Mr. Davenant is—he’s still in love with me. And, you see, he must have known that if he were charged with the murder, my name was likely to get dragged into the thing. So it wasn’t only for his own sake that he tried to get away.” “Well, I’ll do my best. But you can’t throw any light on the whole thing yourself, except for what you’ve said? You didn’t, I mean, see Brother—see your husband or Davenant after you heard about the bankruptcy?”