"
Langholm had found the old Australian who could be proved to have been
in Chelsea, or thereabouts, on the night in question; but the pistol he
could not hope to find, and the motive was mere surmise.
And yet, to the walls of the mind that he was trying so hard to cleanse
from prejudice and prepossession--to school indeed to an inhuman
fairness--there clung small circumstances and smaller details which
could influence no one else, which would not constitute evidence before
any tribunal, but which weighed more with Langholm himself than all the
points arrayed in his note-book with so much primness and precision.
There was Rachel's vain appeal to her husband, "Find out who _is_ guilty
if you want people to believe that I am not." Why should so natural a
petition have been made in vain, to a husband who after all had shown
some solicitude for his wife's honor, and who had the means to employ
the best detective talent in the world? Langholm could only conceive
one reason: there was nothing for the husband to find out, but
everything for him to hide.
Langholm remembered the wide-eyed way in which Steel had looked at his
wife before replying, and the man's embarrassment grew automatically in
his mind.
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