"I'll answer that question by asking you another? Who am I?" Vane stared and looked wholly bewildered. "Owain Hench!" "So I thought. Now I learn from Gilberry & Gilberry that I am Owain Evans." "What?" Vane uttered the ejaculation in as astonished a tone as Hench had done in the solicitor's office. "Are you a relative of the dead man?" "Yes. I am his nephew." "Well, the unexpected is always happening," commented Vane, after a pause of sheer surprise. "But even so, as you did not know your uncle and never met him, you can still say, if necessary, that you had no motive to murder him." "I can't." Owain rose and began to pace the room. "I can't; and that's the worst of it, Jim. As you say, I did not know him and I never met him, but evil tongues might give me the lie, seeing what I stood to gain." "What did you stand to gain?" "Ten thousand a year." "Ten thousand a year!" Vane echoed the words with a gasp of astonishment. "I say, Owain, those mysterious papers left by your father did mean a fortune after all, as Madame Alpenny suspected?" Hench nodded, and sat down again with a disconsolate air. "It is a dangerous position that I am in. Owain Evans of Rhaiadr with ten thousand a year, which comes to me now that Uncle Madoc is dead----that is who I am." "But you knew nothing about such an inheritance?" "Who will believe that?" asked Owain derisively. "Already, as the tramp who asked the way to the Gipsy Stile, I am accused of the crime. Should the truth of my keeping that appointment become known, the motive of gaining ten thousand a year will be imputed to me as an excuse for committing the deed." "Don't go too fast, Owain," said Vane sharply; "remember only Gilberry & Gilberry had this information. They can prove that you knew nothing about the same on the first of July when the man was murdered." "True enough. All the same I kept the appointment," persisted Hench stubbornly. "Who is to prove that I did not have a long interview with my uncle in Parley Wood; who is to declare that he did not admit I was his heir and that his death would place me in possession of so large an income? And, remember, Jim, that I am poor. A man would do much to gain ten thousand a year." "A man like you, Owain, would do nothing mean or dishonourable or cruel to gain double the sum," said Vane sharply. "Don't be a fool." "Am I a fool? You know me, Jim, but other people don't. Supposing Madame Alpenny tells what she knows to the police and sets them on my track----" "She doesn't know your address. You told me so." "I told you truly. She doesn't. But seeing that I have given my usual name both at the hotel I stayed at and to the landlady of my lodgings in South Kensington, there won't be much difficulty in the police finding me. People will talk, you know. I have shaved off my beard too, and that might be quoted against me as a sign of my guilt."