‘And then?’

The Professor stared.

‘I went along home.’

‘Which way did you go out?’

‘The same way I came in.’

‘Why?’

‘Pah! Why does one do anything? It was the nearest way.’

‘It gave you a long dark walk round the house.’

‘And I have an excellent pocket torch. Look here, where is this getting us?’

Abbott said coolly,

‘I just wondered whether it was because you didn’t want to be seen. You wouldn’t, would you, if Whitall was dead when you left him?’

The Professor thumped with both hands.

‘Well then, he wasn’t, and that’s that! He was sitting where you are now with the dagger in front of him on the blotting-pad, looking about as sweet as verjuice. I went out, and before I got down the steps he was after me, locking the door in case I took it into my head to come back.’

‘He locked the door after you?’

The Professor gave one of his great roars of laughter.

‘Jammed down the bolt! Couldn’t do it fast enough! Afraid I’d come back and refute him some more!’

There was a pause. Then Abbott said,

‘Do you know that Waring found that door ajar at a little after twelve?’

The Professor stared.

‘Then someone must have opened it.’

‘Or left it open. If Herbert Whitall was dead when you left him, there would be no one to fasten the door after you-would there?’

The Professor grinned.

‘Very subtle, young man. What do you expect me to say? He was alive when I left him, and he locked the door behind me. So you can put that in your statement, and I’ll sign it!’

CHAPTER XXIX

When the Professor had made his statement and signed it, which he did with a fine zigzag of a Z and a ‘Richardson’ of which the capital letter was the only one which could be identified with any certainty, he threw down the pen and inquired whether the police were going to make fools of themselves by arresting him.

‘Don’t mind me, if you want to be a laughing-stock! Get on with it!’

‘And you will write to The Times about it? Well, I don’t think we’ll oblige you today, but you must understand that you will be called at the inquest, and that you should be available for further questioning.’

The Professor gave his booming laugh.

‘I shan’t do a bolt, if that’s what you mean!’

Miss Silver had been knitting thoughtfully. When Professor Richardson had banged the door behind him Frank Abbott strolled over to her and said,

‘Well?’

She coughed mildly.

‘An interesting character,’ she observed.

He sat down on the arm of the opposite chair.

‘Oh, quite.’

‘In some ways so extremely uncontrolled, and yet capable of meeting a really alarming situation with considerable coolness. His argument, produced on the spur of the moment and after a really remarkable exhibition of anger, was, under the mannerisms with which it was presented, both adroit and cool.’

Frank nodded.

‘He has got a brain all right.’

‘A very good one, I should say.’

He laughed.

‘But you haven’t really answered my question. What did you think of that cool, adroit argument of his? Did you find it convincing?’

‘I am inclined to be convinced by it.’

‘Would you like to give me your reasons?’

Her busy hands rested for a moment. She looked at him in a very earnest manner and said,

‘It is a question of motive. I cannot see why Professor Richardson should have desired Sir Herbert Whitall’s death. There may, of course, be things that we do not know, but on the face of it the Professor had every reason to be pleased with the result of the interview which had just taken place. You can, of course, confirm his account of it by asking to see the letter from M. Robinet which, he declares, enabled him to confute Sir Herbert. Having had the best of that argument, why should he proceed to violence? He would be much more likely to have arrived at a state of high good humour, no doubt very offensive to Sir Herbert Whitall but in no way calculated to produce a murderous impulse. There is also the fact that he apparently made no attempt to keep his voice down during the interview. The hour was not very late. It was only eleven o’clock. Anyone might have been passing along the passage. Marsham did in fact pass, and heard both his voice and Sir Herbert’s.’

‘Oh, I did not suppose that he came here intending to murder Sir Herbert.’

‘What provocation could he have received sufficient to carry him to such an extreme?’

Frank raised an eyebrow.

‘Does that temper of his require any extreme provocation?’

Miss Silver said in her most thoughtful voice,

‘In small things, no. There is a great deal of surface disturbance, as we saw. He blustered and raged, but at a moment’s notice control was resumed-if indeed it had ever really been lost. To use his own argument, if he has never assaulted anyone before, why should he now murder Sir Herbert Whitall?’

‘In other words, you don’t think he did it.’

‘I can see no reason why he should have done so.’

As she spoke, the telephone bell rang. Frank went over to it, picked up the receiver, and said, ‘Hullo?’ Then his voice changed.

‘That you, Jackson? Well, what have you got?’

There was a pause whilst a murmuring noise came from the instrument. After an interval Frank said,

‘Forty thousand?’ And after another, ‘Isn’t that the old boy who had his picture in the papers with a hundred and one candles round a three-tiered cake?… I see… All right. Thanks.’

He hung up and came back to his chair.

‘Well, there seem to be some signs of a rat down the hole you were interested in.’

‘My dear Frank!’

‘The Dryden hole. I put a ferret down, and he’s just come up to report.’

Her glance held an indulgent reproof.

‘I imagine you to mean that you have had some inquiries made with regard to Sir John Dryden’s will.’

‘Right, as always! The excellent Jackson has been to Somerset House, and reports that Sir John left forty thousand in Government stock in trust to his adopted daughter Lila.’

‘And the trustees?’

‘Two of them-his wife Sybil Dryden, and Sir Gregory Digges.’

This name, together with Frank Abbott’s part in the telephone conversation, brought instant illumination to Miss Silver’s mind. She took two newspapers, one world-famous for its moderate views and impeccable taste, the other of a livelier cast and given to pictorial illustration. Like Frank, she immediately recalled the photograph of Sir Gregory Digges on his hundred-and-first birthday surrounded by descendants, all apparently in rapt contemplation of an enormous cake with candles on every tier.

Frank laughed.

‘I see the name touches a chord. Well, there you are. The will was made getting on for twenty years ago, and I suppose Sir John wanted to pay the old boy a compliment. You know how it is with trustees-one of them does the work, and the others sign on the dotted line, Sir John obviously expected his wife to be the one who did the work. I begin to wonder how she did it.’

Miss Silver was knitting again. She said in a reminiscent voice,

‘Nineteen years ago…Miss Lila was then about three, and Sir John was not married to Lady Dryden.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘Oh, quite. I fear I cannot give you the date of the marriage, but it was some years subsequent to the adoption.’

‘Then her name must have been added later. It would be quite a natural thing to do. Jackson didn’t go into details.’ Miss Silver coughed.

‘Lady Dryden certainly gave me to understand that Sir John had been able to do very little for his adopted daughter.’

‘Query-are her ideas so large that she regards forty thousand as chicken-feed? Or what? I wonder whether the late Herbert had had a look at Sir John Dryden’s will same as Jackson. If he was marrying the lovely Lila he would take an intelligent interest in that forty thousand. But Lady Dryden says there was very little for Lila. How come? Herbert may have wanted to know that and a good deal more. He may have developed an inconvenient curiosity-even a menacing one. If the forty thousand was no longer there, it might be very awkward indeed for Lady Dryden. It would, in fact, explain why Lila mustn’t marry Bill, and must marry Herbert though she quite obviously regarded him as poison.’ He glanced at his wrist-watch and got up. ‘Well, having given free rein to our imaginations and hung a great deal of fancy on a very small peg of fact, we had better come back to solid earth. From which mixed metaphors you may pick out any one you like and keep it with the assurances of my most profound esteem-an expression translated from the French. I’m going to try it on the Chief one day and watch him blow up. For the moment, if his train wasn’t late Mr. Garside, Whitall’s solicitor, should be turning in at the drive. We are about to stage the great will scene and watch everyone’s reactions. You are specially invited to attend.’