I smiled. There was something of the charlatan in him.
"The body of Peter Judd is found," Quarles went on, "his brother's isn't. Where is it? Down the well? You do not think so, yet by the shred of pajamas and the slipper found there it is desired by someone to suggest this solution. A well can be made to give up its secrets, as a rule, but not this particular well. This is a point in Richard Coleman's favor, since he would not be likely to have any knowledge of local lore; and, if you like, it is against Gilson, who might have such knowledge. But what possible object could he have in laying such a misleading trail?"
"To implicate some other person--the man he had seen join the Judds as he left them."
"I am not combating your theory that two men left the Judds in much the same manner that night, and that the man who gave evidence at the trial was not the one Coleman saw. No doubt Coleman saw Gilson; but do you suggest it was a premeditated crime?"
"No. Gilson was curious about the visitor, and watched; and while he waited Peter Judd went to the well, and Gilson saw the gold. Then desire to possess came to him."
"So he murdered the two men who had been kind to him. Why?" asked Quarles. "During the night he could have broken open the shed and taken the gold. The Judds would undoubtedly have jumped to the conclusion that their nephew had robbed them."
"I should say Gilson's idea was to get the key, hence the murder."
"And while he was strangling Peter, what was Simon doing? Since Peter was found in the sitting-room in his pajamas, it is permissible to suppose that something had aroused him. If it did not arouse Simon too, Peter would be likely to do so, and at the very least he would have called for help the moment he was attacked."
"You forget the doctor's evidence," I said. "He was killed by the shock as much as by the man's fingers at his throat."
"A most important point," said Quarles; "we will come back to it in a minute. Having murdered both the Judds, this imbecile breaks into the shed, because he fails to find the key, I suppose; and having got the money, is satisfied. He hides one body and leaves the other. He lays a false trail for no earthly reason, I submit. For months he does not let fall a word to disturb his mother, but he haunts the gate of the farm."