At any rate he had shown his hand; firstly,
in the attempted assault upon myself by his Nubian servant and
secondly, by the devilish device whereby he had propelled some sort of
gas projectile (for this we now knew it to have been) from the tower
of Friar's Park into my room at the Abbey Inn. I had, then, become
obnoxious to him; he evidently regarded my continued existence as a
menace to his own.
Two explanations of his attitude presented themselves: one, that my
inquiries had led me daily nearer to the heart of the mystery; or,
two, that the doctor's mysterious associate, the possessor of the
green eyes, had adopted an attitude towards myself which the Eurasian
had counted sooner or later as certain to compromise him. In short,
whilst it was sufficiently evident to me that these mysterious people
residing at Upper Crossleys were the criminals for whom New Scotland
Yard was searching, no definite link between their admittedly
dangerous activities and the crime we sought to unravel, had yet been
brought to light.
On the other hand, whilst it was not feasible to suppose that any
relationship existed between Sir Eric, the new baronet, and the
Eurasian, or the woman associated with the Eurasian, I was quite well
aware that, equally, there was no evidence to show that such an
association did not exist.
I longed to be able to offer some consolation to Isobel, who at this
time was passing through days and nights of dreadful apprehension; but
beyond imparting to her some of my own personal convictions, I was
unable to say honestly that the complicity of Coverly in the murder
was definitely and legally disproved.
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