Chapter 13 - Page 2

Hillier above; and
this on one side's Captain Brooks; and there, in front of all--well,
you know HIM anyhow, Una. Now, don't pretend you forget! That's
Courtenay Ivor!"

Her finger was on the man who stood poised ready to jump. With an
awful recoil, I drew back and suppressed a scream. It was on the tip
of my tongue to cry out, "Why, that's my father's murderer!"

But, happily, with a great effort of will I restrained myself. I saw
it all at a glance. That, then, was the meaning of Dr. Marten's
warning! No wonder, I thought, the shock had disorganised my whole
brain. If Minnie was right, I was in love once with that man. And I
must have seen my lover murder my father!

For I didn't doubt, from what Minnie said, I had really once loved
Dr. Ivor. Horrible and ghastly as it might be to realise it, I
didn't doubt it was the truth. I had once loved the very man I was
now bent on pursuing as a criminal and a murderer!

"You're sure that's him, Minnie?" I cried, trying to conceal my
agitation. "You're sure that's Courtenay Ivor, the man stooping on
the wagon-top?"

Minnie looked at me, smiling. She thought I was asking for a very
different reason.

"Yes, that's him, right enough, dear," she said. "I could tell him
among a thousand. Why, the Moore hand alone would be quite enough to
know him by. It's just like my own. We've all of us got it--except
yourself. I always said you weren't one of us. You're a regular born
Callingham."

I gazed at her fixedly. I could hardly speak.

"Oh, Minnie!" I cried once more, "have you ... have you any
photograph of him?"

"No, we haven't, dear," Minnie answered.

"That was a fad of Courtenay's, you know. Wherever he went, he'd
never be photographed. He was annoyed that day that your father
should have taken him unawares. He hated being 'done,' he said. He's
so handsome and so nice, but he's not a bit conceited. And he was
such a splendid bicyclist! He rode over and back on his bicycle that
day, and then ran in all the races as if it were nothing."

A light burst over me at once. This was circumstantial evidence. The
murderer who disappeared as if by magic the moment his crime was
committed must have come and gone all unseen, no doubt, on his
bicycle. He must have left it under the window till his vile deed
was done, and then leapt out upon it in a second and dashed off
whence he came like a flash of lightning.

It was a premeditated crime, in that case, not the mere casual
result of a sudden quarrel.

I must find out this man now, were it only to relieve my own sense
of mystery.

"Minnie," I said