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a great deal,' insisted Christopher. 'I've known you make incautious remarks before but never ones that might land you in a prison cell. Now let's have no more prevarication, Henry. What did you say?'
        'I threatened to kill him.'
        Christopher was staggered. It had never occurred to him for a moment that his brother was guilty of a crime serious enough to justify arrest and imprisonment. He knew his brother's defects of character better than anyone and a homicidal impulse was certainly not among them. Or so he had always believed. Now he was forced to look at Henry through very different eyes. Strong drink could corrupt any man and few indulged as frequently as his brother. Whole weeks sometimes passed without his managing more than a few hours of sobriety. Such a life was bound to takes its toll on Henry. The thought made Christopher put a straight question him.
        'Did you murder Jeronimo Maldini?' he asked.
        'I don't know,' replied Henry with a forlorn shrug. 'I may have done.'
        
        
        Word of the arrest spread throughout London with remarkable speed. Within a couple of days, it was the talk of every tavern and coffee house in the city. Since she had been there when the murder victim was found, Susan Cheever took a keen interest in the case and seized on every scrap of information related to it. She was astonished to hear that Henry Redmayne was the chief suspect. Her father, an unforgiving man, was plainly disgusted.
        'He should be hanged by his scrawny neck at Tyburn,' he announced.
        'But he's not been convicted yet, Father,' she reminded him.
        "The fellow is guilty. Why else would they arrest him?'
        'There are all kinds of reasons. Mistaken identity is but one of them.'
        'We have been the victims of that, Susan.'
        'What do you mean?'
        'We took the Redmayne family for honourable men,' he said, gesticulating with both arms, 'and we were most cruelly deceived.'
        'Not so, Father,' she rejoined with vehemence. 'Christopher Redmayne is the most honourable man I've ever met and his brother, Henry, can be quite charming when you get to know him.'
        'I've no wish to know him, Susan.'
        'At least, give him the benefit of the doubt.'
        'What doubt?' he asked. 'Henry Redmayne consorts with some of the most notorious rakehells in the capital. That says everything. It pains me to admit that my son, Gabriel, was once embroiled in that same twilight world of decadence and debauchery. He paid for it with his life.'
        'And who helped to solve his murder? Christopher Redmayne.'
        'I've not forgotten that.'
        'But for him, the villains would never have been caught.'
        'That was one crime, this is quite another.'
        'It's unfair to reproach him because of what's happened to his elder brother.'
        'Certain traits run in families.'
        Susan exploded. 'That's a dreadful thing to say!'
        'Nevertheless, it happens to be true.'
        'But their father is the Dean of Gloucester.'
        'You know my opinion of Anglicans,' he said with a sneer. 'That may be the reason the sons were led astray. Brought up on debased values, they had a false start in life. It's ended at the gallows.'
        'It's done nothing of the kind, Father,' she said, 'and I'll thank you to stop talking about the two brothers as if they are the selfsame person. They most assuredly are not. It's Henry who has been charged with this terrible crime and I, for one, will presume him innocent until he's proved guilty in a court of law.'
        'I know the man did it. I feel it in my bones.'
        'That's no more than old age creeping up on you.'
        'Old heads are the wisest.'
        'Not when they make unjust accusations.'
        'The fellow has been arrested, Susan,' he said, slapping the table with the flat of his hand for emphasis. 'Evidence has been gathered and a warrant