"I have quite an open mind on the question."

"You forget that she had resolved early that day to visit her sister at Richmond, and Putney is on the direct road. What more reasonable than to assume--"

"Beware of assumptions! You are assuming all the time that Corbett was a principal in her murder.""Very well, Mr. Bruce. Then I ask you straight out if you don't agree with me?"  
"I do not." 

This declaration astounded the barrister himself. Often the mere utterance of one's thoughts is a surprise. Speech seems to stiffen the wavering outlines of reflection, and the new creation may differ essentially from its embryo. It was so with Bruce in this instance.

Ever since Mr. White's arrival had aroused him from the positive stupor caused by the stock-broker's unwitting revelation, Claude Bruce had been slowly but definitely deciding that Mensmore did not kill Lady Dyke. He had seen him, unprepared, facing death as preferable to dishonor. At such moments a man's soul is laid bare. With the shadow of a crime upon his conscience Mensmore's actions could not have been so genuine and straightforward as they undoubtedly were.

Mensmore, of course, might in some way be bound up with the mystery surrounding Lady Dyke's movements. His very utterance in Bruce's room at the Hotel du Cercle implied as much. That was another matter. It would receive his (Bruce's) most earnest attention. But the major hypothesis, so quickly jumped at by the police, needed much more substantiation than it had yet obtained.

That it was plausible was demonstrated by the barrister's readiness to adopt it at the outset. Even now that his impulse to fasten the crime on Mensmore had weakened he wondered at his eagerness to defend him.

The detective was even more surprised. "I don't see how you can take that view," he cried. "Corbett's behavior is, to say the least, unaccountable. If he is an innocent man, then he must be a foolish one. Besides, why should he necessarily be innocent? This is the first gleam of light we have had in a very dark business, and I mean to follow it up."

The vindictive emphasis of his tone showed that the detective was annoyed at the other's impassive attitude. He even went so far as to dimly evolve a theory that the barrister wished to throw him off Corbett's trail on account of his sympathy for Mrs. Hillmer, but Claude rapidly dispelled this notion.

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