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“Then Dick Jarvis is alive?” asked Milmarsh eagerly.

“No, he is dead!”

Howard Milmarsh fell back, his mouth dropping open and a terrified light gathering in his eyes.

“Dead?”

“Yes. But, as I have told you, your boy did not kill him. You need have no fear about that. Where is your son? I should like to tell him. I have no doubt he is nearly out of his mind over the belief that he has committed murder.”

“He is. But he is not at home. He has gone away—to New York, I believe. I hope he will be back in the morning. Tell me how it is that Richard Jarvis is dead. I have had no communication with him or his father since long before my wife died, but I am sorry Richard is dead.”

“He was not really a cousin of your son’s, was he?” asked Carter.

“No. His father was my wife’s half brother, so that I never considered him a relative, in the true sense of the word. And yet, if I had no son——”

“I know all about that,” interrupted the detective. “Don’t think of it. You have a son, and a good one, take him altogether. As for Richard Jarvis’ death, it is not easily explained. After your son left the Inn, Thomas Jarvis, Richard’s father, appeared there, in a rage, asking for his son.”