POSSIBLE MOTIVES
---- ---- ---- is a human mystery, his past life a greater one.
He elaborately pretends that no part of that past was spent in
Australia.
M. said he knew him there; also that "he'd make him"--pay up!
Blackmail not inconsistent with M.'s character.
Men have died as they deserved before to-day for threatening
blackmail.
_Possible Motive for Marriage_
Atonement of the Guilty to the Innocent.
As Langholm read and re-read these precise pronouncements, with
something of the detachment and the mild surprise with which he
occasionally dipped into his own earlier volumes, he congratulated
himself upon the evidently lucid interval which had produced so much
order from the chaos that had been his mind. Chaotic as its condition
still was, that orderly array of impression, discovery, and surmise,
bore the test of conscientious reconsideration. And there was nothing
that Langholm felt moved to strike out in the train; but, on the other
hand, he saw the weakness of his case as it stood at present, and was
helped to see it by the detective officer's remark to him at Scotland
Yard: "You find one [old Australian] who carries a revolver like this,
and prove that he was in Chelsea on the night of the murder, with a
motive for committing it, and we shall be glad of his name and address.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293