Tracks in the Snow by Godfrey R. Benson — Read

So then the mystery of Longhurst's fate was not for me to unravel. Peters had held the clue of it, and had died because he held it; Verschoyle perhaps had the clue and was dead too, probably from some other cause; neither had recorded his secret, or the record could not be found. As for the manner of Peters' death, what further place was there to look to for some fresh discovery? I already had heard all that any of my old parishioners, any grown man or woman among them, knew, and it was less than I knew, and I had searched the neighbourhood for news, quietly, but I hoped no less effectively; the police, I was now ready to believe, had searched as zealously and more wisely. And so Vane-Cartwright was to go unhanged, and why not, after all? he was not a homicidal maniac but a wise criminal, rather more unlikely than most men to commit any further crime. Even his gains, however ill-gotten, were not likely to be more harmfully spent than those of many a better man. And no innocent man suffered under suspicion. Trethewy had been found a good place by some unlooked-for benefactor, where no memory of the crime would pursue him. Callaghan's numerous enough friends understood him far too well to suspect him, and as for his numerous acquaintances who were not friends, if they did suspect him, the good man would be rather amused than otherwise. Let Vane-Cartwright live and adorn society which is adorned by men and women worse than he, to whom circumstances have never brought the opportunity of dramatic wrongdoing.

Thus I tried to think, as I left England for a few weeks in the late spring of 1897 to join my wife and our daughter, who was now much stronger, in Italy; but, whatever I tried to think, I had always with me that consciousness of a purpose frustrated or let go, which is perhaps the hardest thing to bear well and the most enervating thing to bear ill.