Another Woman's House by Mignon G. Eberhart Page B

have lied to save her if he had been able to do so. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know the boy. But he impressed me as the kind of youngster who’d act impulsively—and perhaps more chivalrously than truthfully. But in this case it’s reversed. If he’d told the bare truth in the first place, including this very important detail he claims to have forgotten until now, Webb could not have gotten anywhere in accusing Mrs. Thorne.”
    Richard said, “Tim wouldn’t knowingly have injured Alice or me.”
    â€œBut he did substantiate Webb’s story. He has now recanted. His claim that he forgot Webb’s opening of that curtain is very difficult to believe. And if it is not the real reason for his inconsistency, what is the reason?” A kindness which rang sincere and regretful crept into his voice. “I’ve been thinking about this all the way over here, trying to get every angle on it. I don’t want to be too hard on the boy—nobody, does. And there’s been a cruel injustice already in this case. I cannot have that repeated in any sense. I like the boy; he seemed to me honest. But if there’s something there that he’s not told me, what is it?”
    He paused as if Myra already knew or could guess what that something was. And she would not guess. She would not follow the path of his reasoning. She would not look ahead to the precipice to which it led.
    Yet she knew its nature.
    Richard knew it, too. He moved over to stand beside her.
    The Governor said, “I said that there are only a few suspects. I cannot overlook the fact that Tim might have come to the house sooner than anyone knows; that he certainly had countless opportunities to take the gun. I cannot suggest a motive. But conscience,” said the big man slowly, “is a very powerful force. As irresistible and almost as explosive as gun powder.”
    â€œTim Lane didn’t kill Jack,” said Richard.
    The Governor said, “No. I don’t think he did. But I don’t think Webb killed his own brother, either. And if by any chance—mind you, I’m only saying if —young Lane did kill him, it would explain a lie in the first place. It would explain his coming to me now, in remorse, trying to get Mrs. Thorne released without actually making a confession to murder himself. Certainly the murder was unpremeditated; certainly it was the result of a quick and unexpected impulse; all the circumstances point to that. If Tim did it, if he seized the first story that came into his head to clear himself, if he felt then he had to stick to it, if even—I’m only saying if—he felt that no jury would convict a woman of Mrs. Thorne’s position, beauty, wealth and all that, therefore, she was in no real danger, if indeed that aspect of the case, that is, the possibility of Mrs. Thorne’s being accused, did not so much as occur to him at that moment and, as I say, later he was afraid to retract his first statement …” he shrugged. “If some or any of these suppositions are correct, it would explain everything. Manders was murdered. The only three people we know to have been on the spot are Mrs. Thorne, Webb Manders and”—he looked at Myra again—“and your brother, Miss Lane.”

CHAPTER 7
    S O THAT WAS THE precipice at her feet, unhidden. Myra said, “Tim couldn’t have done that,” and knew that her words to the big man watching her were mere words, what he had expected.
    Richard said, quickly and forcefully, “Look here, sir. I know that boy. I’ve known him since he was really a kid. He’s been coming to this house for school vacations, weekends, since he was thirteen or so. This was like home; he had no other home. My aunt, years ago, took both Myra and Tim under her wing. She took Myra to London with her; she put Tim in school here …”
    â€œI know,” said the Governor nodding gravely.