The next morning Mary joined me in the garden—just after breakfast. She looked lovelier than ever, although it was obvious to the careful observer that she was troubled. “Bill,” she said, “you haven’t spoken to poor Mrs. Prescott since her arrival yesterday—she had all her meals in her room, you know—come and see her this morning—if only to please me. It’s been heart-breaking to talk to her. He was her only son.”

I was conscious of a certain feeling of resentment. It was absurd of her upsetting herself like this—Prescott was dead and it was all exceedingly sad and all that—but it didn’t please me to see the shadows in Mary’s face over it. I gently remonstrated with her.

“You mustn’t let yourself be worried about this affair, Mary,” I said, “it’s bad enough I know, and pretty sickening happening here and at this time—rotten for Sir Charles and your mother—but hang it all, it might have been a lot worse.”

She looked at me reproachfully. “What do you mean,” she asked, “in what way?”
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“Well,” I responded, awkwardly I admit, “it might have been Jack—or—er Captain Arkwright—one of the family you might say—Prescott wasn’t exactly a ‘nearest and dearest.’”

She scanned my face curiously. “No, Bill,” she remarked very quietly, “he wasn’t exactly. But I’ve had to face his mother and I can’t forget that he was our guest and that it was in our house that he met his death—that he came to his death here,” she wrung her hands in the emotion of her distress—“it makes me feel so responsible.”

“Rot!” I exclaimed, “it might have happened to him anywhere—you can’t prevent a crime—now and then.”

“It might have, Bill, but it didn’t. And that’s just all that matters.”

“Again, it might have been worse, too, from the other standpoint.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother’s pearls. We’ve recovered them when the odds seemed pretty hopeless.”

“What do they matter? Bill”—she put her hand on my sleeve, “you can do me a favor. Tell Mr. Bathurst I should like to have a chat with him.”

“When?”

“Oh—when it’s convenient—this afternoon, say.”

“All right,” I replied. “What are you doing this morning?”

“I’m going to take Mrs. Prescott out of herself—if I can. Come and see her.”

I disliked the job as much as Mary had dreaded it, but courtesy demanded it.
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Mrs. Prescott was a tall woman with white hair—somewhere I should judge in the early “fifties.” She was completely mistress of her feelings and gave an immediate impression of efficiency and capability. I learned afterwards that she had founded the florist’s business in Kensington that had achieved such remarkable success and had been the foundation stone of the family fortunes, and was herself at the time of which I speak a Justice of the Peace. The blow she had received had been a very heavy one, but she was unmistakably facing it with courage.

“Good-morning, Mr. Cunningham,” she greeted me quietly.

“You know me then, Mrs. Prescott?” I asked, not without surprise.

“Gerald”—there was a little catch in her throat—“pointed you out to me at Lords’ a month ago.”

I was momentarily at a loss. I had expected a grief-stricken woman bordering on hysteria, and this quiet and courageous resignation stirred me greatly.

“I see,” I responded. Then murmured a few words of condolence.

“Thank you,” she said, “thank you. As you say, Mr. Cunningham, his death is a terrible thing—but the idea that he has been murdered, and that his memory will be attached for always to that murder, I find even more terrible and nerve-racking. If I don’t summon all my strength to my aid—I fear I shall give way to the horror of it.”

I expressed my most sincere sympathy, and Mary Considine caught her two hands and pressed them.
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“You’re wonderful,” she cried, “to endure things as you have. And I’m going to try to help you to endure them even better.”

Mrs. Prescott smiled very sweetly. “You are very kind, my dear,” she said. “But I feel this, Mr. Cunningham,” she turned in my direction, “that I owe it to my son’s memory to leave no stone unturned to find the man or woman who killed him.” The look of patient resignation on her face gave way to one of steady resolution. She continued—talking seemed to relieve her grief a little, perhaps.

“I’m certain of one thing. I’m absolutely certain, in my own mind, that when Gerald came down here to Considine Manor, he had no worries, no trouble on his mind, and that whatever dark passions encompassed his end—were awakened very recently.”

Mary’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“Oh, don’t say that, Mrs. Prescott,” she said. “I can’t bear to think that this came to him when he was our guest—I’ve just been telling Mr. Cunningham the same thing.”

Mrs. Prescott smiled sadly. “You have nothing with which to reproach yourself, my dear. I just know that when Gerald came here he was intensely happy and glad to come. Therefore, whatever cause brought about his death, had its origin down here. That’s all I mean.” She put her arm round Mary’s shoulders. I heard a step behind—it was Anthony. Mary introduced him.
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“I am pleased to meet Mr. Bathurst,” said Mrs. Prescott. “I have heard already from Sir Charles Considine of what you have done for him. Perhaps you will be able to do something for me.”

Anthony bowed. “I am at your service, Mrs. Prescott—command me. How can I help you?”

She repeated to him her previous words to us. Anthony knitted his brows.

“I appreciate,” he said, “the fact that you are speaking with intimate knowledge which makes what you say especially valuable—you are quite assured that your son had no shadow on his life when he came down here?”

“I am positive of it, Mr. Bathurst,” Mrs. Prescott replied. “Of course it may have been some phase of the robbery Mary has told me about, but something tells me it wasn’t—the cause lies outside that.” She shook her head.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Prescott,” interposed Anthony. “I should like to ask you a question—can you in any obscure or roundabout way connect your son—legitimately of course—with any previous jewel robbery?”

A look of amazement spread over her features.

Anthony continued quickly. “I’m afraid I’ve put it to you very awkwardly and clumsily—but this is what I’m driving at. Has he, for example, ever been stopping at a country house that has been robbed while he has been there? The kind of experience, we will say, that would cause him to be on the qui vive were he confronted a second time with the possibility?”
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“I don’t altogether follow you, Mr. Bathurst,” she answered, “so I don’t know whether I can answer you satisfactorily—but I don’t know of any connection of the kind you have indicated.”

“I have a reason for asking,” he intervened quickly. “There is abundant circumstantial evidence that your son, on the evening of the murder, may have been outside the billiard room window—almost in the same spot as this man Webb. If it were he, what took him there?”

“If he were there, Mr. Bathurst,” said Mrs. Prescott, “you may depend upon it, that he had a good and honorable reason for going.”

Anthony bowed. “I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of your opinion.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bathurst.”

“But, all the same, I must confess to being mystified with regard to those footprints.”

“The whole affair is a mystery,” she answered, “that may never be solved.”

“Not the whole affair, Mrs. Prescott—some aspects are becoming increasingly plain—and I hope in time to solve it all!” Anthony’s jaw set.

“That will mean a lot to me, Mr. Bathurst,” she said. “Perhaps more than I can tell you.” She turned to Mary. “I’ll come with you now, dear, as you suggested. Good-bye to you two gentlemen. But there, I’m sure to see you again.” They passed out of the room together and left us.

“What are you doing this morning, Holmes?” I sallied. Anthony looked at me whimsically.
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“I’m thinking of having another look at things,” he said; “there are one or two things I should like to make more sure of.”

“What are they?” I inquired curiously.

“I should like to have a look at the billiard room—and Prescott’s bedroom,” he replied unconcernedly. “I’m building up a theory and I would like to test it in one or two places. Come with me?”

“Delighted,” I answered. “Billiard room first?”

“As you please,” said he. We ascended the stairs. In the sunshine of the morning, there seemed to remain no trace of the dreadful secret the room held. The table, bereft of its ghastly burden of a few days since, only spoke of the game it stood for. It was a difficult matter to realize all that had happened since the last game that had been played upon it.

“These chairs were overturned, Bill, and this poker was lying on the floor—remember?”

I did—and I said so. He went full length on the floor and took a magnifying-glass from his pocket.

“I’m rather sceptical about the magnifying-glass stunts you get in detective novels,” he muttered, “but I want an extra-special look at this floor-covering.

“No,” he said as he arose, “I can’t see any signs of any struggle—there are no scratches that would evade the naked eye, of feet moved uncontrollably like in a fight or wrestle. And what is more, Bill, I particularly noticed when Marshall gave the alarm, that although Prescott’s brown shoes were muddy—there was no trace of any mud on the floor here. Think of that, laddie............