Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/87

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CARMICHAEL'S ACCOUNT OF IT
73

"You mustn't expect me to know everything; I can only go by the indications. But I should say that he really would have come back here as Davenant, perhaps about three weeks later, and settled down permanently at the Hatcheries; or perhaps even—he was a very remarkable man—he would have bought up Brotherhood's bungalow. You see, he liked the place; he liked the company; the only thing he disliked was having to play golf badly, and that necessity disappeared, once he settled down as Davenant. A wig is a nuisance, but so is baldness. The last place where anybody would look for Mr. Brotherhood, last heard of on the way to Glasgow, would be Paston Whitchurch, where Mr. Brotherhood had lived."

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid," said Gordon, "one of Nature's Watsons, as I said yesterday. But what about all the silly little indications I found at the Hatcheries an hour ago? Do they back up your theory, or are they wide of the mark?"

"It's all according to schedule," explained Carmichael, "but for a reason quite different from any you imagined. You must consider that the things we really find it hard to change are not the important things of life, our moral or religious or political standpoint, but our common, daily habits of living. Brotherhood might be an atheist, and Davenant a Catholic; Brotherhood a violent Radical, Davenant a Diehard Tory. But every man has his own preference in razors and in shaving-soap and in tooth-powder; and if you looked into the