"Yes, so we may," said Kelson alertly, though with something of a shudder.
"Not a pleasant idea," continued Morriston. "But I don't see, if a bad character did get in and mix with the company, why he should have done a fellow guest to death, nor how he contrived to leave his victim and get out of the room after he had locked the door."
"If the two men had a row over a girl, or anything else," Kelson said, "there is still that difficulty to be surmounted."
Gifford spoke. "From what one could judge of the dead man's personality and character it is not a far-fetched supposition that he must have had enemies."
"Down here?" Morriston objected incredulously. "Where he was a stranger? Unless some ingenious person, bent on vengeance, tracked him here and then lured him into the tower. Then how did the determined pursuer contrive to leave him and the key inside the locked room?"
At Wynford Place, where they had now arrived, they found several callers. The subject of the tragedy was naturally uppermost in everybody's mind, and the principal topic of conversation. Morriston and his companions were eagerly questioned as to what had come out at the inquest, but, except that the medical evidence was rather sceptical of the suicide theory, were unable to relieve the curiosity.
"I think, my dear Dick," remarked Lord Painswick, who was there, "we can furnish more evidence in this room than you seem to have got hold of at the inquest." And he looked round the company with a knowing smile.
"What do you mean, Painswick?" Morriston asked eagerly. "Has anything more come to light?"
"Only we have had a lady here, Miss Elyot, who says she danced with the poor fellow."
"I only just took a turn with him, for the waltz was nearly over when he asked me," said the girl thus alluded to.
"Did you wear a green dress?" Kelson asked eagerly.
"Only that it must have been you I saw with him."
"And can you throw any light on the mystery?" Morriston asked.
The girl shook her head. "None at all, I'm afraid."
"Did Mr. Henshaw's manner or state of mind strike you as being peculiar?"
"Not in the least," Miss Elyot answered with decision. "During the short time we were together our talk was quite commonplace, mostly of the changes in the county."