"It's the son I mean, not the father. Well, then, Edwin Craver loved Claudia; but I refused to allow the marriage as I wanted my daughter to become a lady of title. Sir Hector proposed, and the marriage was to have taken place a month ago, as I insisted that Claudia should become Lady Wyke. Then Sir Hector wrote postponing the marriage, and came down here." "What reason did he give?" "Said his health was bad. I tried to see him and he refused. I couldn't find out his address for a long time, as he wrote from his London house. Finally I got it from Craver--Edwin, I mean--and came down the other night to force Wyke to explain his dashed impudence. While he was explaining the ring came at the door and he bolted. The rest you know. Well?" "Well," echoed Purse, vaguely and rather distraught. He did not know very well what to say, as this new complication took him by surprise. Edwin Craver loved the girl, Edwin Craver was the son of the Rector in whose parish the crime had been committed. "Could it be that Edwin Craver----" "No," said Lemby, reading suspicion in the sergeant's eyes. "Edwin is innocent. I'll swear. In my opinion it was----" He hesitated, faltered and broke down, while Purse waited for him to complete the sentence. CHAPTER V. Lemby had some difficulty in speaking freely, and hesitated so pointedly that Purse impatiently assisted him. "Are you going to tell me who is the criminal?" "No," said Lemby, promptly, and now speaking readily enough. "I was about to say that I believe it was a case of suicide." The sergeant expressed his surprise. "Suicide, when Mrs. Vence saw the assassin bending over his victim? Ridiculous!" "It may be ridiculous, or it may not be," replied the buccaneer, doggedly; "but from what I know of Wyke, he was in no danger from anyone. Who the man is that Mrs. Vence saw I don't know. But Wyke might have killed himself and the man might have been bending over his body to afford succour." "Ridiculous," replied the sergeant. "If the strange man was innocent he would scarcely have fled. His flight on the bicycle proves his guilt. Besides, what reason had Wyke to commit suicide?" "What reason had he to postpone his marriage and come down to this dismal place?" demanded Lemby, sourly. "You are asking me questions which I cannot answer. Evidently, although I did not know it, there was some secret in Wyke's life which made him act so strangely and drove him to suicide." "I don't believe for one moment that he committed suicide," persisted Purse, after a pause, and remembering how Mrs. Vence had been engaged to hold her tongue; "but he evidently came down here to escape the man who slew him." "He might have done so, sergeant." Lemby made a gesture, as if brushing aside the whole subject. "Anyhow it is a sore blow to me and to my daughter."