It was simply phrased and simply spoken. Adrian felt no disposition to resist. He spoke with perfect frankness and implicity.

‘I don’t know what to tell you.’

She smiled again.

‘Whatever you choose. I am wondering a little how you came to be associated with him.’

‘Oh, that is easy. I was rather at a loose end. I had known him casually for some years, and when he asked me whether I would care to undertake the alterations he wanted made at Vineyards I jumped at it.’

‘He gave you a free hand?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. I would put up my suggestions, and as a rule he took them. But not always. For instance, he would hang on to that horrible staircase.’

Miss Silver, set down her coffee-cup on a small occasional table.

‘Thank you-no more.’ She opened her flowered knitting-bag, disposed the pink ball in such a manner that it would not roll, and resumed little Josephine’s second vest.

‘You say you knew him casually. But in such a close association as you imply you must have learned to know him better.’

Their distance from the group at the fire and the low tone in which they were speaking gave the conversation as much privacy as if they had been alone. He hesitated for a moment, and then said,

‘Oh, yes-a great deal better. We came together on some surface similarity in our tastes. We both fell for Vineyards, for instance. He could appreciate a beautiful thing when he saw it-he did appreciate beautiful things in his own way. What I discovered when I got to know him better was that there was something rather abnormal about this appreciation.’

Miss Silver gave her gentle cough.

‘In what way?’

He looked at her with candid hazel eyes.

‘If he admired a thing he wanted to possess it.’

‘That seems abnormal to you?’

‘It does a little. But I have put it badly. He could hardly admire what belonged to someone else. Or if he admired it he must strain every nerve to get it for himself.’

The thought of Lila Dryden rose between them as clearly as if she had come into the room and was standing there-lovely, fragile-something to be desired and possessed by Herbert Whitall.

Adrian said quickly,

‘He was quite ruthless about it. He would rather have seen anything he wanted smashed than let it go to somebody else.’

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

‘You did not find it altogether easy to work with him?’

‘Not altogether. But as far as Vineyards was concerned it wasn’t too bad-I didn’t see so much of him. He came and went of course, generally at the week-end, but for the most part I was here on my own.’

Miss Silver put down her knitting for a moment and looked at him across the pale pink wool.

‘I am going to ask you a very frank question. You may not care to answer it, but I hope that you will do so. Did you like Sir Herbert Whitall?’

He showed no hesitation in answering.

‘I don’t think he wanted to be liked.’

‘Had you any feeling of affection or friendship for him?’

He shook his head.

‘That’s the wrong way to put it. He didn’t want those things -he had no use for them.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Beautiful things that would belong to him-things other people wanted and couldn’t get. He valued a thing much more if other people wanted it. And he liked power. His money gave him a lot of that, but it wasn’t enough. He liked to have people on a string, so that they couldn’t get away if they wanted to. He liked to know something about them which wasn’t usually known-something they wouldn’t like anyone to know. He mightn’t ever use that knowledge, but he liked to feel that he had got it there to use.’

Miss Silver had been listening with an air of absorbed attention. She said,

‘Such a person as you describe would be liable to arouse feelings of acute resentment and even hatred. Quite a number of people might have been tempted to wish for his death.’

The hazel eyes looked straight into her own. Adrian Grey said,

‘Oh, yes, quite a number.’

CHAPTER XXVII

At ten o’clock next morning Miss Silver was informed by Frederick that Inspector Abbott was in the study and would like to see her there. Not being as yet quite perfect in his part although a willing learner, this was Frederick ’s version of a much more politely phrased request. Miss Silver, however, took no exception to it. She had been about to embark upon a truly thankless task. Her niece Gladys Robinson a selfish and flighty young woman, so different, so very different from her sister dear Ethel Burkett, had written to ask for a loan and to pour out a string of complaints about her husband, a most worthy man though perhaps a little dull and a good deal older than Gladys. He had been considerably better off at the time of their marriage, but he had been just as many years older, just as dull, and just as worthy. Miss Silver had long ago decided with regret that Gladys had married him for his income and not for his moral worth. She wrote with increasing fretfulness of having to do her own housework. She complained that Andrew was mean. She so far forgot herself as to say, in terms whose vulgarity shocked Miss Silver profoundly, that there were other and far better fish in the sea. On the last page of this latest letter she had actually mentioned the word divorce.

In her reply Miss Silver had got no farther than, My dear Gladys, I really cannot say how much your letter shocks me-when, interrupted by Frederick with his version of Inspector Abbott’s message, she laid down her pen with a sigh of relief, closed the blotter, and proceeded at once to the study.

Frank Abbott was alone. Coming forward to meet her, he inquired immediately,

‘Where is the magnifying-glass? I suppose you have it?’

Her glance reproved him. Her sedate ‘Good-morning, Frank’ was a reminder that the formalities had not been observed.

When he had responded and replied to a solicitous hope that he had slept well, she answered his question by diving into her knitting-bag and handing him the magnifying-glass.

‘I thought it best to take charge of it. In the circumstances it seemed inadvisable to leave it lying about.’

‘Oh, quite.’

He took it to the window, turning it this way and that until the initials came into view. Then he came back and set it down upon the writing-table.

‘Z.R. it is. And scratched on by his own amateur hand, I should say. Throws a sinister light upon Collectors’ morality. You wouldn’t think this sort of thing would be in any danger of being pinched, would you? But the Professor thinks it’s safer to put his initials on it. By the way, I was right about the minor prophets-Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah. Malachi. Professor Richardson is Zechariah. And so what?’

She seated herself and took out her knitting. Little Josephine’s second vest was well on its way. It was in a very thoughtful manner that she said,

‘It would be easy to attribute too much importance to the fact that the Professor’s magnifying-glass has been found in this room. I think you said that it had rolled under the table. I suppose you mean the writing-table?’

‘Yes.’

‘It may have been mislaid on some occasion previous to the murder.’

He shook his head.

‘I’m afraid not. The room was thoroughly turned out the day before Whitall and his party came down here. And Richardson wasn’t any where near the place until he came to dinner on the night of the murder.’

‘Did he not come into the study before dinner?’

‘I don’t know-it hasn’t been mentioned. But we can easily find out.’ He went over to the bell and pressed it. ‘There are one or two other points I’d like to take up with the butler.’

It was Marsham’s habit to answer the study bell. He answered it now.

‘Come in and shut the door. There are just one or two points where I think you can help me. The dinner-party on the night of Sir Herbert’s death-can you tell me in what order the guests arrived?’