“I suspected her from the first,” explained Anthony. “There was a light in her room on the night of the murder. Afterwards, I wavered. I made inquiries¹ about her in Brittany, and came back satisfied that she was what she represented herself to be. I was a fool. Because the Comtesse de Breteuil had employed a Mademoiselle Brun and spoke² highly of her, it never occurred to me that the real Mademoiselle Brun might have been kidnapped on her way to her new post, and that it might be a substitute taking her place. Instead I shifted my suspicions to Mr. Fish. It was not until he had followed me to Dover, and we had had a mutual³ explanation that I began to see clearly. Once I knew that he was a Pinkerton’s man, trailing King Victor, my suspicions swung back again to their original object.

 

“The thing that worried me most was that Mrs. Revel⁴ had definitely recognized the woman. Then I remembered that it was only after I had mentioned her being Madame de Breteuil’s governess. And all she had said was that that accounted for the fact that the woman’s face was familiar to her. Superintendent⁵ Battle will tell you that a deliberate plot was formed to keep Mrs. Revel from coming to Chimneys. Nothing more nor less than a dead body, in fact. And though the murder was the work of the Comrades of the Red Hand, punishing supposed treachery on the part of the victim, the staging of it, and the absence of the Comrades’ sign manual, pointed⁶ to some abler intelligence directing operations. From the[Pg 255] first, I suspected some connection with Herzoslovakia. Mrs. Revel was the only member of the house party who had been to the country. I suspected at first that some one was impersonating Prince Michael, but that proved to be a totally erroneous idea. When I realized the possibility of Mademoiselle Brun’s being an impostor, and added to that the fact that her face was familiar to Mrs. Revel, I began to see daylight. It was evidently very important that she should not be recognized, and Mrs. Revel was the only person likely to do so.”

分享到：