Of all the expedition he seemed to be the best and most dispassionate judge of Mrs Leidners personality.
I think that he always knew her for exactly what she was but what impression her personality made on him I was unable to discover.
I fancy that Mrs Leidner herself must have been provoked and angered by his attitude.
I may say that of all the expedition,as far as character and capacity were concerned, Mr Emmott seemed to me the most fitted to bring a clever and well-timed crime off satisfactorily.
For the first time, Mr Emmott raised his eyes from the toes of his boots.
Thank you, he said.
There seemed to be just a trace of amusement in his voice.
The last two people on my list were Richard Carey and Father Lavigny.
According to the testimony of Nurse Leatheran and others, Mr Carey and Mrs Leidner disliked each other.
They were both civil with an effort.
Another person, Miss Reilly, propounded a totally different theory to account for their attitude of frigid politeness.
I soon had very little doubt that Miss Reillys explanation was the correct one.
I acquired my certitude by the simple expedient of provoking Mr Carey into reckless and unguarded speech.
It was not difficult.
As I soon saw, he was in a state of high nervous tension.
In fact he was and is very near a complete nervous breakdown.
A man who is suffering up to the limit of his capacity can seldom put up much of a fight.
Mr Careys barriers came down almost immediately.
He told me, with a sincerity that I did not for a moment doubt, that he hated Mrs Leidner.
And he was undoubtedly speaking the truth.
He did hate Mrs Leidner.
Butwhy did he hate her?
I have spoken of women who have a calamitous magic.
But men have that magic too.
There are men who are able without the least effort to attract women.
What they call in these days le sex appeal!
Mr Carey had this quality very strongly.
He was to begin with devoted to his friend and employer, and indifferent to his employers wife. That did not suit Mrs Leidner.
She must dominate and she set herself out to capture Richard Carey.
But here, I believe, something entirely unforeseen took place.
She herself for perhaps the first time in her life, fell a victim to an overmastering passion.
She fell in love really in love with Richard Carey.
And he was unable to resist her.
Here is the truth of the terrible state of nervous tension that he has been enduring.
He has been a man torn by two opposing passions.
He loved Louise Leidner yes, but he also hated her.
He hated her for undermining his loyalty to his friend.
There is no hatred so great as that of a man who has been made to love a woman against his will.
I had here all the motive that I needed.
I was convinced thatat certain moments the most natural thing for Richard Carey to do would have been to strike with all the force of his arm at the beautiful face that had cast a spell over him.
All along I had felt sure that the murder of Louise Leidner was a crime passionnel.
In Mr Carey I had found an ideal murderer for that type of crime.
There remains one other candidate for the title of murderer Father Lavigny.
My attention was attracted to the good Father straightaway by a certain discrepancy between his description of the strange man who had been seen peering in at the window and the one given by Nurse Leatheran.
In all accounts given by different witnesses there is usually some discrepancy, but this was absolutely glaring.
Moreover, Father Lavigny insisted on a certain characteristic a squint which ought to make identification much easier.
But very soon it became apparent that while Nurse Leatherans description was substantially accurate, Father Lavignys was nothing of the kind.
It looked almost as though Father Lavigny was deliberately misleading us as though he did not want the man caught.
But in that case he must know something about this curious person.
He had been seen talking to the man but we had only his word for what they had been talking about.