Mallett shook his head.

“If Dick did it, I’m a Dutchman,” he said. “I told you Tom was secretive, but Dick is just the opposite, with everything on the surface and ready to say the first thing that comes into his head-just as he did at the inquest. He might kill a man in hot blood-as any of us might-but he couldn’t take a calculated risk. He couldn’t have come along to me and asked me to help him prove that Jack died before Gilbert, knowing all the time that I only had to prove a little too much for him to be charged with murder. He just hasn’t got it in him.”

“And so we come back to Mr. Joliffe,” said Pettigrew. “I should be so much happier if he could be cast as the villain of the piece throughout. I’ve taken a thorough dislike to him.”

“But logically that’s impossible, sir. Let me explain-”

“Don’t bother. We’ve been over all the ground already, and I realize that it’s only wishful thinking on my part. I’m hopelessly prejudiced against the man anyway. Don’t forget that he gave me the most unpleasant experience of my life at Bolter’s Tussock last September. That reminds me of something I’d been meaning to ask you for some time. When Joliffe took the body out of his cold store on Tuesday morning, why did he go to the trouble of carting it back to Bolter’s Tussock? There must have been scores of places just as good for his purposes and far more accessible to his shop at Whitsea.”

“That point puzzled me too, sir. But I think there’s no doubt that you were responsible for that.”

“I was? In heaven’s name, why?”

“Well, it so happens that Mr. Percy-you’ll remember Mr. Percy, sir?”

“Percy Percy! I’ll remember him to my dying day, I should think.”

“Mr. Percy has a small farm on the other side of the moor and on the Monday, when his shop was closed, Joliffe went over to see him about some beasts he had to sell. They got talking of this and that, and Mr. Percy happened to mention-”

“That he had met a lunatic on Bolter’s Tussock who claimed to have seen a dead body there. I can hear him saying it.”

“Quite so, sir. Well, that must have put Joliffe in rather a difficulty. He wasn’t to know that you had not been able to have a good look at this body so as to be able to give a clear description of it. He expected you to go off to the police with that description as soon as you could get out of bed.”

Pettigrew cleared his throat self-consciously. “Quite so. Go on,” he said.

“As I see it, he decided that it would be rather awkward if the police were told that Jack had been found on Bolter’s Tussock on Saturday when they had found him miles away on Tuesday. They might go and look at Bolter’s Tussock to make sure, and find something-bloodstains perhaps, or a button off his coat. Then they would start making the sort of enquiries which, in the end, I made. But if they found him on Bolter’s Tussock on Tuesday before you had made any report to them-”

“-they would conclude that I was one of the imbeciles who always come forward to distract the police with imaginary stories as soon as they read about anything of this kind in the papers. Really, Mr. Mallett, there is something rather diabolical about this man Joliffe. Is there any good thing to be said about him?”

“Well, sir, to give him his due, I think he is really devoted to his little granddaughters. As Mrs. Gorman said in court, the whole of this business was devised to get the inheritance for them. I think the bitterest blow for him must be that as soon as she tumbled to what he had done she left him and took the children with her. One could almost feel sorry for him over that. He’s a very lonely man just now.”

“I refuse to pity him. Isn’t he courting Louisa Gorman at Minster Tracy? She must be a lonely woman. They can console each other.”

“No, sir. You’re forgetting what Miss Green way told us this afternoon. That affair seems to have fizzled out now.”

For a time it seemed that the conversation also had fizzled out. In the silence that followed Pettigrew jettisoned the butt of his cigar, and recharged Mallett’s glass and his own.

“Aren’t we running our heads against a brick wall?” he said at last. “Doesn’t all the evidence point to accidental death?”

“I won’t settle for accident until I can be sure of the kind of accident it was,” said Mallett stubbornly. “And there’s another thing, Mr. Pettigrew. This accident happened a deal too conveniently to satisfy me. He had only to live one day more for his daughters to come into all Gilbert’s money. Don’t tell me it was coincidence that he died when he did.”

In that moment revelation came to Francis Pettigrew.

“Of course not!” he said. “You are perfectly right- it wasn’t coincidence at all. I can see the whole thing now. Our whole trouble has been that we’ve been looking at this case from the wrong end. Look at it from the proper end and it sticks out a mile. Don’t you see, Mallett? The reason why we haven’t got the right answer is that we’ve never asked the right question!”

And he proceeded to ask the right question and to supply the answer to it with emphasis and elaboration.

Mallett had never been an emotional man-members of his profession cannot afford to be-and with increasing age his manner had become calmer and quieter than ever. He listened to Pettigrew’s excited harangue with an air of no more than interested attention. When it was over he took time to refill and light his pipe. Then he said:

“You know, Mr. Pettigrew, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you were right. In fact, I think I’d be prepared to go so far as to say outright that you are right. As you say, once you look at the case from the proper angle all the probabilities point that way. It’s a pity that we shall never be able to prove it, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing the answer.”

“Don’t be so dismal,” said Pettigrew. “In any case, it’s not for us to prove anything. That’s up to Parkinson and his merry men.”

“Suppose I can persuade Mr. Parkinson to start this enquiry all over again from a new standpoint, do you suppose there’ll be any evidence left after all this time?”

“Nobody can tell that till the evidence is looked for. There are some kinds of evidence that are indestructible. With any luck this will be.”

“Let’s hope so. I’ve got to persuade Inspector Parkinson, and Parkinson’s got to persuade his Chief. Then if the preliminary enquiries indicate that we’re on the right track, the Chief’s got to persuade the Home Office. It will all take time, and the first stage will be the longest, I fancy. If there’s nothing to show at the end of it, my name will be mud.” He drained his glass and stood up. “And now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Pettigrew, I think it is time I went to bed. It has been a most rewarding evening and I’m very grateful to you for all you’ve done. If only-”

“Yes?”

“If only I could get an answer to that other problem that was troubling us, then I should really know we were on the right lines.”

“I’m in a generous mood,” said Pettigrew. “I’ll answer that one for you too. Or rather, I’ll tell you where to find the answer. It’s in your library. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-or is it The Memoirs? Look it up when you get home-you’ll recognise it easily enough.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” repeated Mallett. “I won’t forget. Good night, sir, and thank you.”