CHAPTER XLI

Looks as if we’re back where we started.’

The Chief Inspector’s tone was a gloomy one. Frederick had been dismissed. He spoke to Frank Abbott and Miss Silver, and his expression indicated that this unfortunate state of affairs could only have arisen through negligence on their part. He would not have put the accusation into words, but he was certainly in the mood in which a man feels that he has been let down, and casts about him for someone to take the blame.

Miss Silver, opening her work-bag and picking up her knitting, was perfectly aware of this. She observed a tactful silence, and left it to Frank Abbott to say,

‘That’s about the size of it.’

Lamb thumped the table.

‘First it looks like a cast-iron case against Miss Dryden and young Waring, and then you go and make a red herring out of the Professor and drag him across the trail. For all we know, he may have done it. I grant you there doesn’t seem to be any adequate motive, but there have been murders done with less. It isn’t always the motive-it’s the state of a man’s mind. If he’s worked up to a certain pitch he loses control, lets go of himself, and hits out with anything that comes handy. Take this Professor. He and Sir Herbert have a kind of running quarrel-like to score off each other. Looks as if Sir Herbert had the money and the Professor had the brains. You can get a lot of jealousy, and ill-feeling out of a situation like that. Well, the Professor was here with Sir Herbert for about twenty minutes between a little before eleven and the quarter past. And we’ve only got his word for it that he left him alive. There’s quite a case to be made out there, you know. If it hadn’t been for things looking so black against Waring and Miss Dryden, I might have told you to go ahead with it. And now they’re out, I think we had better come back to the Professor again.’

Frank said,

‘I don’t think he did it, sir. As you say, the motive isn’t much. Mr. Haile has a stronger one. Even Lady Dryden. There’s no absolute evidence that he was blackmailing her into pushing her niece into marrying him, but I haven’t the slightest doubt that he was bringing some pressure to bear. Quite frankly, I think that Lila Dryden’s money is gone, and that Lady Dryden knows where. We could check up on that, you know, and it would certainly provide her with a motive. As to opportunity, any one of the people in the house that night could have come down to the study and bumped Whitall off. The bother, as stated by Miss Whitaker, seems to be that there is quite an embarrassment of choice-so many people disliked him and were going to be the better for his death. Haile, I gather, is going to be the better for it to the tune of something like three-quarters of a million, even after the Chancellor has had his whack. Quite a lot of people have been put out of the way for a good deal less than that.’

Lamb looked up with his lips pursed, as though to whistle.

‘Three-quarters of a million? My word!’

‘And Haile was up to his eyes in debt. According to Lady Dryden and Miss Whitaker he came here on Saturday night to ask for a loan, and Whitall was going to refuse him. He admits that he had hopes of a legacy from his cousin. That would be under the old will. But in three or four days time there was going to be a new will. He may easily have supposed that his prospects were diminishing. There’s a whale of a motive there.’

Lamb nodded slowly.

‘And not as much evidence as you could put on a threepenny bit-the old kind, before they took to making a cheap show of them with plants growing.’

They went on talking-about Haile, about Lady Dryden, about the Professor. And what it came to in the end was that there wasn’t enough evidence to make a case against any of them. Haile had a very strong motive if he knew what was in the first will, but there was no proof that he did. Lady Dryden had a motive if Herbert Whitall was blackmailing her into pushing on the marriage to Lila, but there was no proof that there was any blackmail going on. The world is full of women who will rush a girl into a marriage they consider advantageous. Professor Richardson could hardly be said to have a motive at all. On the other hand, he admitted to something like a quarrel, and he was certainly one of the last people to see Herbert Whitall alive. He left Vineyards at a quarter past eleven, according to his own statement and the evidence of Frederick. Either Haile or Lady Dryden could have come down and stabbed Sir Herbert after that. Or Adrian Grey, or Marsham, or Mrs. Marsham, or Frederick. So far as opportunity went, they all had it and could have availed themselves of it. And there wasn’t any evidence to show that anyone of them did.

Miss Silver had been knitting in a thoughtful silence. She now gave a gentle cough.

‘If I may make a suggestion-’

Lamb turned to look at her.

‘Think you’ve got something?’

She smiled disarmingly.

‘I would not go so far as to say that. It was just a suggestion.’

‘Well?’

‘The time that is so important is from a quarter past eleven, when Professor Richardson is known to have left, and twelve o’clock, when according to her own evidence and that of Frederick it seems probable that Miss Whitaker found Sir Herbert dead. The medical evidence also supports this probability. We have, therefore, rather less than three-quarters of an hour during which anyone in the house could have come to the study and stabbed Sir Herbert. Since you have seen Professor Richardson’s statement, you will remember that he says he heard Sir Herbert bolt the door behind him, yet Miss Whitaker found it open. Sir Herbert may have admitted someone from outside, in which case we are left without any clue to his identity, or, the crime having been committed by someone in the house, the door may have been unbolted by the murderer in order to make it appear that some person had come in from outside.’

The Chief Inspector nodded.

‘Very nicely put and all that. But it doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?’

Miss Silver’s look held some slight reproof.

‘I believe it might do so. What I was about to say is this. During the critical period which we have to consider, we know for certain that one of the people in the house was actually moving stealthily about in it. I refer, of course, to Frederick. He came down the back stairs, satisfied himself that Marsham was nowhere in the back premises, and finally left the house by the housekeeper’s room. I think it might be advantageous to press him closely as to why he was so sure that Marsham was in the front of the house. You will have noticed that while he answers any question that is put to him, he does not readily volunteer anything.’

‘Well, we can press him on that point. I don’t suppose we shall get very much.’

Miss Silver continued to knit.

‘From the conversation which I overheard between Mr. Haile and Marsham it appears to me that there is some implication that the former had been seen by the latter in circumstances which he was not willing to have disclosed. This may, or may not, refer to the night of the murder, but I am inclined to believe that it does. Finally, I think that Mr. Adrian Grey should be questioned very closely as to his movements on Saturday night. His story that he heard Miss Dryden come out of her room and followed her to the study is disproved by what Miss Whitaker and Frederick have told us. He could not have been immediately behind Lila Dryden, or he would have seen Miss Whitaker and heard what she said, in which case he would certainly have intervened and given the alarm. I think he should now be pressed to correct his statement.’ She paused, smiled in an encouraging manner, and concluded, ‘Those are the suggestions which I thought might be productive of something which you would admit to be evidence.’