I used to laugh at his serious ways, when I, older and
much more experienced in some respects, treated life as a tiresome joke.
But none of my friends were commissioned to murder my brother so that I
might obtain the estate, Mr. Brett."
"Not by you," he said thoughtfully.
He knew well that to endeavour to get Margaret to implicate her husband
would merely render her an active opponent. She loved this Italian scamp.
She was profoundly thankful that David Hume had come back to claim the
hand of Helen Layton, the woman who had been the unwilling object of
Capella's wayward affections. She would be only too glad to give half her
property to the young couple if they would settle in New Zealand or
Peru--far from Beechcroft.
Yet it was impossible to believe that she could love a man whom she
suspected of murdering her brother. Why, then, had husband and wife
drifted apart? Assuredly the pieces of the puzzle were inextricably mixed.
"Where did you marry Mr. Capella?" asked Brett suddenly.
"At Naples--a civil ceremony, before the Mayor, and registered by the
British Consul."
"Had you been long acquainted"
"I met him, oddly enough, in Covent Garden Theatre, the night my brother
was killed"
It was now Brett's turn to be startled.
"Are you quite certain of this ?" he asked, his surprise at the turn taken
by the conversation almost throwing him off his guard.
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