The Silver Bullet by Fergus Hume — Read

Dr. Jim slept very little that night. He was turning over in his mind Joyce's strange conduct. Now that he remembered, Robin had been very particular as to the details of his whereabouts. He had gone to Town on a Tuesday leaving Herrick at the Southberry Railway Inn. According to his story he had seen Frith and Frith the same afternoon, and again the next morning. The intervening night he had slept at the Hull Hotel in a side Street off the Strand. Then on Wednesday afternoon, he had rejoined Dr. Jim at Southberry and on Thursday morning had started to cross the Heath. It was on that same night, that the two had discovered the body of Colonel Carr. So far Herrick had believed this story.

But now, the fact that he had not called on the lawyers had put a different complexion on the affair. Also his statement concerning the money left to him was proved -- by the evidence of the solicitors who paid the annuity -- to be a lie. Robin therefore had not been so deeply plunged in grief as he appeared to be, when he could call a few days after his mother's death to see if he was to inherit the money. Herrick considered that probably when alone in the flat he had found some paper stating that the five hundred a year terminated at his mother's death, and had gone to Frith and Frith in order to ascertain if this were true. Besides his mother might have told him this on her deathbed. But what else had she told him? Colonel Carr was not the man to pay out money for nothing. Mrs. Joyce must have had some hold over him.