“Well, we traced his back history. An uncle of his was the senior Mr. Codrington’s partner-that’s how this Mr. Codrington came to take him on. He’s a qualified solicitor of course. Got bitten with Fascist ideas when they were all the go, but dropped them-or I should say appeared to drop them-when Hitler was showing his hand and they weren’t so popular. He use to go off hiking in Germany. Lots of people did, and no harm in it, but if you wanted a cover-up for any funny business it was quite a good one. Just when he definitely started working for the Nazis, we don’t know, and we’re not likely to, but he must have been playing their game for years. We’ve got Madame Dupont identified. Her name’s Marie Rozen, and she’s a nasty bit of work. I think her husband is just what she said he was-a clever hairdresser, badly broken in health and not in this Nazi business at all. They were only married just before the war-she got in here under his first wife’s name. To get back to Trent. Besides the very respectable rooms where he lodged, he kept a room over a garage in one of those streets off the Vauxhall Bridge Road. He’d an envelope on him addressed there in the name of Thomson, and the people have identified him. That’s where he changed when he wanted to be Mr. Felix or anybody else. We found a couple of wigs, one red and one grey, and all sorts of clothes, some of them very shabby, and a big loose overcoat. With that and the red wig, I don’t suppose his best friend would have known him. He kept a battered old taxi in the garage, and passed as a driver who had been called up for Fire Service. I don’t think there’s much doubt that he met Miss Nellie Collins at Waterloo and told her he was taking her to see Lady Jocelyn. She may have thought she was being driven to Jocelyn’s Holt. He could have made a long way round of it to the lane where she was found. There are plenty of ways you can waste time if you put your mind to it, and she wouldn’t think she had any reason to be suspicious, poor lady. Then, when he’d got her where he wanted, he’d make some excuse to get her out of the car and just run her down. See?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Dear me-how extremely shocking!”

Frank Abbott put up a hand to his mouth for a moment. A gleam of cynical amusement might have been observed by his companions, had either of them been looking in his direction. His thoughts were of a lively irreverence. “The old fox-he’s cribbed most of that from Maudie, and she’s letting him get away with it-she always does. Now just how far is he really kidding himself, and just how far does he think he is kidding Maudie-and me?” His conclusion being that it was as good as a play, he resumed the enjoyable pose of listener. His Miss Silver had just proffered a neat little bouquet of compliments. His Chief Inspector was accepting it heartily, if not with grace. The atmosphere was genial.

Lamb fairly shone with satisfaction as he said,

“Well, there it is-the police do earn their pay sometimes! Oh, by the way, we found the laundry-basket. It was in the corner of his garage. Nothing inside but a lot of crumpled-up paper. I should say there’s no doubt he took it along in the taxi and waited till he saw Sir Philip come out. Then he’d only to put the basket on his head and walk in and up the stair. It sounds a lot more risky than it was. If he had both his hands up steadying the basket, it would be easy enough to tip it so that anyone he met wouldn’t see his face.”

“You put it so clearly.” Miss Silver’s voice held an admiring note.

The Chief Inspector beamed.

“Oh, well-it’s guess-work. But we’ve got it pretty well figured out. This Annie Joyce would be acting under his instructions. I think we may take it that she’d been told to drug Sir Philip and go through his papers, but meanwhile she had said or done something to make Trent suspect her. He had her followed. He knew she had got at any rate as far as thinking about coming to see you. It’s long odds she had told him what Miss Armitage had overheard. I think she’d be frightened to keep it to herself. What do you say?”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“I think she told him. From one or two things Miss Armitage said, I think Annie Joyce had a grudge against her. Miss Armitage had been very devoted to the real Lady Jocelyn. In a terribly difficult situation, she was trying very hard to maintain the old friendship and affection, but without success. I will give you her own words. They were spoken, I am sure, in deep sincerity. She said, ‘I loved her so much, but after she came back she wouldn’t let me. It didn’t even seem as if she liked me.’ ”

Lamb nodded.

“That would be about the size of it. Well, let’s take it Trent knew they had been overheard. That would give him a very strong motive for getting rid of Annie Joyce. She may, or may not, have known who he really was.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“From the enquiries I have made since his arrest, I do not find that he and the so-called Lady Jocelyn had ever met. I think he would be very careful not to expose his identity. He undoubtedly disguised himself to keep those appointments at the hairdresser’s shop, and from what Sergeant Abbott has told me of the lighting arrangements in the office there, it is clear that the heavily shaded reading-lamp could have been so disposed as to leave him in shadow whilst turning all the light upon a visitor.”

“Yes, that’s the way it would be-and his voice kept down to a whisper like Miss Armitage says. It’s a queer thing, isn’t it, that he should have given himself away by falling into the very trick he had used as a safeguard. If he hadn’t said those same words to Miss Armitage in the same whispering voice that she’d heard on the other side of that door, he might have got clear away. Madame Dupont only knew him as Mr. Felix. With that connection cut and Annie Joyce dead, there wouldn’t have been a single clue to lead to Mr. Pelham Trent. You could get quite a moral out of that-couldn’t you?”

Miss Silver said, “Yes, indeed.”

The Chief Inspector resumed.

“Well, there we are-he goes up with the laundry-basket, and she lets him in. She may have been expecting him-we can’t know about that-but she’d be pleased enough to see him, because she’d think she had got what he wanted. There’s no doubt, from the fingerprints, that she had been all through that code-book-copying it, no doubt. You may call it a guess, but it’s a pretty safe one. As you know, the code was out of date-part of the trap to catch her. A man in Trent ’s position would know enough to know that. He may have meant to kill her anyhow, but if she had let herself be trapped, he just couldn’t afford to leave her alive and risk what she might be able to give away. She took fright and tried to get to the telephone. He shot her down. Then he had a look for Sir Philip’s revolver and took it away with him. He may not have had to look-she may have tried to get it-we can’t know. He didn’t leave any fingerprints, so he must have worn gloves in the flat-probably slipped them on when he was waiting for her to open the door. He had the revolver on him, as you know, when he was arrested. It’s a perfectly watertight case, and a good riddance of three dangerous people-more, maybe, if Madame Dupont talks. Well, that’s about all there is to it. Excuse me, will you-I’ve got to see the Assistant Commissioner.”

When he had gone after a cordial handshake, Sergeant Abbott came over to lean against the table and looked down at his “revered preceptress.”

“Well?” he said. “What are you thinking about?”

She gave a slight hesitant cough.

“I was thinking of what the Chief Inspector said.”

Frank laughed.

“He said quite a lot, didn’t he?”

“At the end,” said Miss Silver-“when he said, ‘That is all there is to it.’ Because there are no circumstances in which that can be true.”

“And how?”

She looked at him simply and gravely.