“That explains so much. I was right. Oh, what a lucky escape you have had!”

“Tell me what you know.”

“It’s damning against him. I thought I recognised his face, but it didn’t come to me until after you’d sailed. I just could not remember where I had seen that face before. The fact of the matter is that the man was a murderer … the worst sort. Not the man who kills in the heat of passion … or from sense of injustice … but in cold blood … for the lust for money. He killed two women whom he married for their money, and was planning this third crime … Myra Ellington. How is she?”

“She is well now. She has been very ill. But Roger Lestrange went away before the siege and was unable to get back.” I explained about the tonic.

He breathed deeply. “Thank God that you broke the bottle, or it might have been too late. Let me tell you more of this man. The reason I was suspicious about him was that there was a case in Australia. It came to my notice because there was a lawsuit about money. It brought out one of the finer points of law, and as you know, we keep records of that sort of thing. A man named George Manton went out to Australia from England. There he married a wealthy young heiress and within nine months of the marriage she was dead through drowning. Her fortune passed to her husband of a few months: George Manton. It appeared that some years after his wife’s death, the heiress’s father had travelled to England. His daughter was then four years old. While he was in England he married again; the marriage was unsuccessful and the couple agreed to part— the husband returning to Australia, the wife remaining in England. But there was a son of that marriage and this son in due course claimed his share of his father’s fortune. The case was tried out in both the English and Australian courts; and during it a picture of George Manton was published. That is when I saw it. But it was not until after you had left that I remembered the case and looked up the relevant papers. When I heard that Myra was ill I was very alarmed. You remember, I wrote to you, telling you you must come home.”

“I thought that was because war was imminent.”

“It was … but there was this as well … and there was another reason.”

“What was that?”

“A personal one. I will talk to you about that later. I had a strong feeling that you might be in acute danger.”

“Lilias and I have thought that I might have been. But tell me first about this wife in Australia.”

“In your letter you mentioned that he had had a wife who died through falling down stairs. It was too much of a coincidence. One wife drowned in Australia shortly after marriage, another falling down the stairs, and the third … very ill … doubtless being poisoned. He was varying in his methods. And then … he had taken great pains to get you out here.”

I told him about the handkerchief and Mrs. Prost.

He was shocked. “I don’t think there can be any doubt,” he said. “What an escape!”

“I believe he killed a little native boy who must have seen him push his wife down the stairs. The child was both deaf and dumb. He was often in the house. Nobody took much notice of him. His mother worked there. He made carved figures which he put in the Model House. I must tell you about that. I discovered it in one of the dilapidated rondavels where I saw wood chippings. Roger Lestrange must have found out the boy did them. Perhaps he caught him in the house … putting that figure there. Then he would have guessed that the boy knew something. It is all falling into place and it is horrible.”

“You should never have come here, Davina.”

“I know now.”

“I cannot forgive myself for introducing you to that Society.”

“It seemed a good idea at the time and we might have gone to Australia or America which was what we planned in the beginning.”

“As soon as I had suggested it I was furious with myself. But you wanted to get away.”

“I thought it was the answer. I now know that there is no safe escape. As you see …”

He nodded.

“I tried to get out here before.”

“You have come all this way … ?”

He smiled at me. “Yes, I have come all this way. It is miraculous that everything turned out as it did. It could have been so different.”

“I am sure he was going to suggest that I hoped to marry him and therefore removed his wife.”

“He was probably hoping that he would get away with it, as he had on two other occasions. Perhaps he thought that the second time in the same house might have aroused suspicions … even though he had used different methods. It seems reasonable to suppose it was a good idea to have you standing by, as an escape route for him, if anything went wrong. He would, of course, have hoped that it would not have been necessary to use you in that way, as the less fuss the better. But he wanted you at hand just in case you should be necessary.”

“It is so cold-bloodedly calculated.”

“He was calculating … cold-bloodedly so. How thankful I am that he was not able to carry out his diabolical schemes. He lived violently. It was rough justice that he should die so.”

“Two people had marked him down for death: the father of the murdered boy was so upset because someone killed him before he could.”

“But we should be rejoicing, Davina. I could have come too late to save you.”

“I don’t think I could have gone through all that again. The court … the dock. It is the terrible stigma that I find so hard to bear.”

He stood up and came to me. He drew me to my feet and put his arms about me. On impulse I clung to him.

“Thank you, Ninian,” I said. “Thank you for coming.”

“I could not forget you,” he told me. “You haunted me. That verdict. Not Proven. They should have known you could not have done it.”

“The evidence was there against me.”

“That woman, Ellen Farley. They never found her, you know. She just disappeared. Why should she have disappeared?

She could have come forward. Heaven knows, we tried hard enough to find her. Her evidence would have been so important.”

“I can’t forget that you came all this way.”

“I felt a letter was not enough. I asked you to come home before. I knew it would be difficult to come, because of the war. But here I am.”

“And that personal reason you were going to tell me?”

“I realised after you’d gone what it meant for me not to see you again. I knew then that I was in love with you.”

“You … in love with me?”

“Couldn’t you guess?”

“I knew you had taken a special interest in my case … but advocates have to be interested in their cases. I thought you were rather taken with my stepmother.”

He smiled. “The enchanting Zillah!” he murmured. “I had a feeling that she knew more than she let us know. It was due to her that we got the verdict we did. She was a vital witness. But I still felt there was more. I wanted to find out what. That was why I cultivated her acquaintance. What I wanted more than anything was to get to the truth. I know what it feels like to come out of the courts Not Proven.”

“Well, thank you, Ninian. You have been wonderful to me. You have helped me so much.”

He shook his head.

“I have not done enough,” he said. “I should have shown my devotion to you. I want you to know exactly how I feel. I love you and want you to come back to Scotland with me.”

I stared at him in amazement.

“I want you to marry me,” he added.

I thought I must have misunderstood.

“I have been hoping that you might care for me,” he went on.

I was silent. I was too deeply moved for speech. I had longed to be with him. I remembered how his interest in Zillah had hurt me. When I had seen him standing at the door I could not believe my eyes. I could not get used to the idea that he had come all this way to see me.

Did I care for him? I had always cared for him. He it was who had drawn me from the slough of despond, who had sustained me with his determination to defend me. When I had left England, as I thought never to see him again, my desolation had been so deep that I had forced myself not to admit it. I had insisted to myself that my depression was due to the fact that I was leaving my native land. But it was not that so much as leaving Ninian.

I said: “I have never forgotten you.”

He took my hands and kissed them. “In time,” he said, “you could care for me.”

“I don’t need time,” I told him. “I care for you now. The moment when I opened the door and saw you there was the happiest in my life.”

He looked suddenly radiant. “Then you will come back … now. You will marry me … ?”

“Go back with you … to Edinburgh? You can’t mean that!”

“But I do. It is the reason why I came here … to take you back with me. I intend that we shall never be parted again.”

“You haven’t thought of this seriously.”

“Davina, for weeks I have thought of little else.”

“But have you considered what this would mean?”

“I have considered it.”

“You, a rising figure in law, married to someone who has been tried for murder … the case Not Proven …”

“Believe me, I have considered all that.”

“It would be very bad for your career.”

“To be with you will be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I should have expected you to show more calm common sense.”

“I am doing so. I know what I want and I am doing my best to get it.”

“Oh, Ninian, how foolish you are, and how I love you for your folly! But it could not be. I should go back to Edinburgh … the place where it all happened. How could I? Everyone knows me there. It is bad enough here to be aware that Mrs. Prost knows who I am. But back there … they would all know. And if you married me … it would all be brought back. They would suspect me, Ninian. We have to face the truth. There will always be those who believe that I killed my father. It would ruin your career.”