Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/116

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THE NICE GIRL
105

man, the harassed mouth of Mr. Lunt was made to explain that Lunt Brothers had annexed Cranford's discovery, and that the expedition of Lunt Brothers had left him to die in the bush.

"Are you justifying the murder?" said counsel for the Crown.

"You will understand my friend's uneasiness, gentlemen," says the little barrister, and pinned Mr. Lunt to the statement that it was Sir Albert who had planned this iniquitous scheme. "And when Cranford had gone, Mr. Lunt, of course you warned your brother at once this desperate fellow was on his track. No? Curious. Yet you went down in your motor to your own house at Colney Towers, not much more than a mile away. You reached the house between 12 and 12.30? Perhaps? Oh, don't begin to forget things now. What did you do then?"

As far as he remembered Mr. Lunt took a stroll.

"On your oath—did you not go and meet your brother?"

Mr. Lunt (who had sat down) started up to deny it. He had not gone outside his own park.

"Would it surprise you to hear that on the path from your house to Sir Albert's there were found next day fresh footprints which your boots fit?" Mr. Lunt often walked that way. "What clothes were you wearing?" Mr. Lunt could not remember. He went as he was. "You don't deny you