“I said just now, ’Either Robert Redmayne killed Michael Pendean, or else he did not.’  And we may add that either Robert Redmayne killed Bendigo Redmayne or else he did not.  But we’ll stick to the first proposition for the moment.  And the next question you must ask yourself is this.  ‘Did Robert Redmayne kill Michael Pendean?’ That’s where your ‘facts,’ as you call them, begin to sag a bit, my son.  There’s only one sure and certain way of knowing that a man is dead; and that is by seeing his body and convincing the law, by the testimony of those who knew the man in life, that the corpse belongs to him and nobody else.”

“Good God!  You think—­”

“I think nothing.  I want you to think.  This is your funeral—­so far; but I want you to come out like the sun from behind a cloud and surprise us yet.  Just grasp that matters couldn’t have happened as you supposed, and go on from there.  Remember, incidentally, that you are quite unable to swear that either Pendean or Bendigo Redmayne is dead at all.  They may both be just as much alive as we are.  Chew it over.  This is a very pretty thing and I believe we’re up against some great rascals; but I don’t even know that yet for sure.  I can see many points that are vital which you are more likely to clear than I. You’ve been badly handicapped, for reasons I have yet to find out; but if you think over what I told you and look into your brain-pan without prejudice, maybe you’ll begin to see them yourself.”

“It’s sporting of you to suggest that, but I can’t offer any such excuse,” answered Brendon thoughtfully.  “Never did a man go into a case with less handicap.  I even had peculiar incentives to make good.  I came into it on the top of the tide with everything under my hands.  No—­what you’ve said throws rather too bright a light on the truth.  Everything looked so straight-forward that I never thought the appearances hid an utterly different reality.  Now I know they probably did.”

“That’s what I guess.  Somebody palmed a marked card on you, Brendon; and you took it like a lamb.  We all have in our time—­even the smartest of us.  Gaboriau says somewhere, ’Above all, regard with supreme suspicion that which seems probable and begin always by believing what seems incredible.’  French exaggeration, of course; but there’s truth in it.  The obvious always makes me uncomfortable.  If a thing is jumping just the way that suits you, distrust it at once.  That holds of life as well as business.”

They chatted for half an hour and Mr. Ganns attained his object, which was to fling his companion back to the beginning of the whole problem that had brought them together.  He desired that Mark should travel the ground again with an open mind and all preconceptions put behind him.

“To-night, in the train,” said Peter, “I shall ask you to give me your version of the case from the moment that Mrs. Pendean invited you to take it up—­or from earlier still, if you had to do with any of the people before the catastrophe.  I want the whole yarn again from your angle; and after what I’ve told you, it may be that, as you retrace every incident, light may flash that wasn’t there before.”