"The whole affair is so mysterious," Morriston said, "that all sorts of absurd rumours will be afloat if we don't take a strong, straightforward line at once. Don't you agree, Edith?"
"Certainly I do," Miss Morriston answered with decision. "I don't suppose," she added with a smile, "that any one would be mad enough to suggest, my dear Muriel, that you were in any way implicated in the affair; but the world is full of stupid and ill-natured people and one can't be too careful to put oneself in the right. Don't you agree, Captain Kelson?"
"Most decidedly," Kelson replied, with a troubled face. Charlie Tredworth was also quite emphatically of opinion that his sister should make no secret of what had been found.
"The inspector, who is here," Morriston said, "tells me that Major Freeman, our chief constable, intends to come here this morning. I'll say we want to see him directly he arrives."
It was not long before the chief constable was shown into the library. Morriston lost no time in telling him of the mysterious circumstance which had come to light. Major Freeman, a keen soldierly man, with the stern expression and uncompromising manner naturally acquired by those whose business is to deal with crime, received the information with grave perplexity. He turned a searching look upon Muriel Tredworth.
"I understand you are quite unable to account for the stains on your dress, Miss Tredworth?" he asked in a tone of courteous insistence.
"Quite," she answered. "I did not speak to Mr. Henshaw or even notice him in the ball-room."
"You had--pardon these questions; I am putting this in your own interest--you had at no time any acquaintance with Mr. Clement Henshaw?"
"I can hardly say that I had," the girl replied; "although a friend has told me that I played tennis with him at a garden-party some years ago."
"A circumstance which you do not recollect?" The question was put politely, even sympathetically, yet with a certain uncomfortable directness.
"No," Muriel answered. "Even when I was reminded of it, my recollection was of the vaguest description. So far as that goes I could neither admit nor deny it with any certainty."
"And naturally you never, to your knowledge, saw or communicated with the deceased man since?"