Mrs.
Kershaw's story and Smethurst's letters had both found their way into the papers, and following my usual method--mind you, I am only an amateur, I try to reason out a case for the love of the thing--I sought about for a motive for the crime, which the police declared Smethurst had committed.

To effectually get rid of a dangerous blackmailer was the generally accepted theory.

Well! did it ever strike you how paltry that motive really was ?" Miss Polly had to confess, however, that it had never struck her in that light.
"Surely a man who had succeeded in building up an immense fortune by his own individual efforts, was not the sort of fool to believe that he had anything to fear from a man like Kershaw.

He must have _known_ that Kershaw held no damning proofs against him--not enough to hang him, anyway.

Have you ever seen Smethurst ?" he added, as he once more fumbled in his pocket-book.
Polly replied that she had seen Smethurst's picture in the illustrated papers at the time.