“ ‘Knew?’ I repeated. ‘But had you any proof?’
“ ‘When there are no possible alternatives, that’s proof enough! Besides, I soon got proof of his character. I made inquiries about him — set an agency on to his track, and I discovered’ — he paused and hesitated for an instant — ‘well, I need only say that he would never have been received in any decent society if people knew what I found out. It had happened abroad — he had done it—’ Again he broke off and the scowl lifted a little from his face. ‘But the man had suffered for his sins, and it had really nothing to do with my story except that it gave me a hold over him. I was mad with anger and I determined to use it.’
“ ‘Had nothing else passed between you?’ I ventured to ask, for I remembered Wickley’s version and I suspected Spencer was skipping a bit.
“ ‘Oh, well,’ he admitted, ‘I may as well allow that I had shown him pretty plainly that I didn’t want to have anything more to do with him. We had one open row, and that was when he showed me what a damned high and mighty aristocratic snob he was. “Gentlemen aren’t grown in two days out of dirty stock-broking mushrooms!” Those were his actual words!’
“I must confess that I had scarcely given Mr. Wickley credit for such powers of invective, and I realised now to what a pitch of fury the two of them had roused one another.
“ ‘As I was saying,’ he went on, ‘I was quite beside myself with rage by this time, and I did a damned silly thing. I wrote to him threatening to show him up if he didn’t clear out of the place. I even went the length of telling him he must sell me his property. That was simply to crush his pride, of course.’
“ ‘You called it “silly,” ’ I said. ‘That seems hardly the adjective to use.’
“ ‘Wait a bit and you’ll see why,’ said he. ‘I must tell you first that I was trying hard to catch my wife all this time. Having to go up to town two or three days a week and leave her to play the devil with that fellow nearly drove me demented. On the other hand, it gave me a chance of catching her napping. One of my servants was watching her for one, but I think Elise must have suspected him...’
“ ‘Him’? I said.
“ ‘It was my chauffeur as a matter of fact; a smart young fellow. He came to me one day and told me he suspected what was up and offered to watch her. I paid him well for it, but though he said Wickley was often hanging round my place, he never found anything definite against my wife. I tried my own hand at it too, by coming back from town when she didn’t expect me, but they were cunning as Satan. I never caught them.
“ ‘But to come to the climax of the affair: I wrote that letter to Wickley from my London office, and then the sudden thought struck me that I would come straight home myself. He wouldn’t expect me, seeing the address on the letter, and he would probably see my wife at once about it. That’s how I argued. When I got home my wife was out, nobody knew where. My suspicions became a practical certainty. I took my gun and I set out in the direction of his house. I’m telling you everything quite candidly, Mr. Carrington. I was just approaching the boundary of the two properties when I saw him coming towards me, as I thought. I slipped behind a tree and watched him. He turned into a wood that lies just on the boundary, and I stood for a short while like a man in hell!’
“Mr. Spencer took out his handkerchief and passed it across his face. As for me, I never was more fascinated in my life, hearing the other half of Wickley’s story like this! In a moment Spencer went on—
“ ‘I yielded to temptation, Mr. Carrington. I felt sure that he and my wife were in that wood, and I meant to kill one or both — Wickley certainly. I made a little detour, entered the wood, crossed a stream that forms the boundary, and suddenly I saw him. He was lying dead on his face, with a huge blood stain all over his back!’
“ ‘Wickley was?’ I exclaimed.
“ ‘I had just seen him go into the wood. Who else could it be? But I didn’t go near the body. I simply turned tail and hurried home as fast as I could walk. It took me all my time to keep at a walk and not to run! And now do you see what a silly performance that threatening letter was? It had come on top of other foolishness, for I had used my tongue pretty freely about the fellow. And now he was lying murdered and I had been seen leaving my house with a gun, and probably had been seen going in that very direction! Also, I knew in my heart I had meant to kill him. Lord, what a shock I got! You may think me a fool to have felt like that...’
“ ‘I don’t in the very least,’ I assured him in all sincerity.
“ ‘Well, that’s how I did feel. Anyhow when I got home I didn’t wait in the house — I simply couldn’t do it. I tramped off to a little local pub, slept the night there, and went back to town in the morning. And now comes a bit of the story that you probably won’t believe, Mr. Carrington.’
“ ‘I believe everything you tell me,’ I said.
“ ‘I had a room at the Hotel Metropole at that time. On the same afternoon, soon after I had got back to London, I was sitting in the hall with a bundle of evening papers, looking for some news of Wickley’s murder, when what do you think? Wickley himself stepped out of the lift and walked across the hall under my nose!’
“He looked at me expectantly, and I tried to seem dumbfounded. I must have succeeded pretty well, for he seemed quite satisfied.
“ ‘It is absolute gospel truth,’ he said. ‘Just as he was passing, he spotted me, and do you know, the extraordinary thing was that all signs of enmity seemed to have left the man! As for me, I was so thankful to see him alive, I could have embraced him. We exchanged a few ordinary remarks in a perfectly friendly way, and then he walked out of the hotel. I haven’t seen him from that moment till last night at the dinner, and it was meeting him again that tuned me up to doing what of course I always should have done. I want this mystery cleared up, Mr. Carrington. I want to know who that man was I saw lying dead in the wood.’
“He stopped, and I realised with a shock that Spencer’s story had done absolutely nothing to solve Wickley’s mystery. I had counted confidently on its cracking the nut, but instead it simply presented me with the same mystery over again.
“ ‘You never discovered who it was?’
“He shook his head.
“ ‘Never to this day. I can only tell you that nobody is known to have been murdered, or even missing, in Devorset at that time. But I’m afraid that won’t help you very much.’
“ ‘Tell me what you did, and your wife did, immediately afterwards.’
“ ‘I funked going back for three or four days. My nerves were utterly rattled. When I got home, my wife had left, cleared right out, and we have never lived together again since. Before leaving she told our housekeeper that she sacked Martin, the chauffeur — no, Marwell, that was his name. Presumably she sacked him because she had discovered he had been spying on her. Of course she had no business to do it on her own account, but I didn’t care by that time. In fact I was rather glad to be rid of him; he knew too much about the miserable business. She left a short note for me, only a line or two. I can remember it by heart. “This is absolutely the end of it. We must never meet again. I have done my best for you. Be grateful to me for that.” ’
“ ‘What did she mean?’ I asked.
“He shook his head.
“ ‘I haven’t the least idea. A woman’s way of getting in the last word and claiming to be in the right, I suppose.’
“ ‘And have you ever met again?’
“ ‘Never.’