"And subsequent reflection," he continued obstinately, "might suggest that all the questions which could throw light upon the trial had not been put."
Thresk replaced the miniature in the drawer in front of him and leaned back in his chair. He looked now straight at Mr. Hazlewood.
"It was not, I take it, in order to put those questions to me that you were kind enough, Mr. Hazlewood, to ask me to give my opinion on your miniatures. For that would have been setting a trap for me, wouldn't it?"
Hazlewood stared at Thresk with the bland innocence of a child. "Oh no, no," he declared, and then an insinuating smile beamed upon his long thin face. "Only since you _are_ here and since so much is at stake for me--my son's happiness--I hoped that you might perhaps give us an answer or two which would disperse the doubts of some suspicious people."
"Neighbours of ours," replied Hazlewood, and thereupon Robert Pettifer stepped forward. He had remained aloof and silent until this moment. Now he spoke shortly, but he spoke to the point:
Thresk turned with a smile upon Pettifer.
"I thought so. I recognised Mr. Pettifer's hand in all this. But he ought to know that the sudden confrontation of a suspected person with unexpected witnesses takes place, in those countries where the method is practised, before the trial; not, as you so ingeniously arranged it this afternoon, two years after the verdict has been given."
Robert Pettifer turned red. Then he looked whimsically across the table at his brother-in-law.
"We had better make a clean breast of it, Hazlewood."
Pettifer came a step nearer. "We are in the wrong," he said bluntly. "But we have an excuse. Our trouble is very great. Here's my brother-in-law to begin with, whose whole creed of life has been to deride the authority of conventional man--to tilt against established opinion. Mrs. Ballantyne comes back from her trial in Bombay to make her home again at Little Beeding. Hazlewood champions her--not for her sake, but for the sake of his theories. It pleases his vanity. Now he can prove that he is not as others are."
Mr. Hazlewood did not relish this merciless analysis of his character. He twisted in his chair, he uttered a murmur of protest. But Robert Pettifer waved him down and continued: