Lucius Bellingdon had a retentive memory. Scotland Yard had furnished him with a copy of Miss Silver’s account of her interview with Paulina Paine. He remembered it perfectly. He had just listened to a repetition of this account from her own lips. To the best of his belief and recollection it had not varied by so much as a single word. He said,

“The second man-the one who was turned away from Miss Paine-she didn’t get what he said. If you had to make a guess at filling in those gaps when he was speaking, what sort of guess would you make?”

She was knitting again easily and fast, her eyes not on the work but on his face.

“I suppose that on the occasion when the first man had spoken of a shot we may presume the other to have made some protest or objection. This would fit in with the first one’s reply that he would not touch the affair on any other terms, but that this way it was a certainty.”

“He said certainty-not cert?”

“The Chief Inspector raised that point. I agree that it is an important one and might afford a possible clue to the man’s identity. I can only say that the word as repeated by Miss Paine was certainty.”

Bellingdon nodded.

“And the other gap-how would you fill that? The one which the first man came in on with his ‘Then there will be two of them for it, that’s all!’ What do you make of that?”

Miss Silver said soberly,

“I think there can be no doubt that the other man had raised the question as to what was to be done should there be a second person in the car. It is, I think, the only explanation which would fit in with the callous response. Had there been such a second person, there would no doubt have been a second murder.”

“Not much doubt about that, I should say. Now about this poor woman. Did she run into an accident, or was she murdered too? Just go over all that about her thinking she might have been followed, will you? They showed me your statement at the Yard, but what a thing looks like in cold black and white, and what it sounds like when you hear it, are two different things. Which is why I wanted to see you for myself.”

Miss Silver said,

“I can repeat Miss Paine’s words, and I can undertake to be accurate in repeating them. What I cannot do is to reproduce her voice, her manner, her expression. I can only endeavour to convey the impression that they left on me.”

Lucius Bellingdon was becoming increasingly aware of the impression that Miss Silver herself was making. Scrupulous accuracy, a temperate judgment, considerable powers of observation-of these she was giving him proof. But above and beyond these qualities he was aware of a poised and keen intelligence. It was a thing which he respected above everything else, and he had seldom been more instantly aware of it.

He said, “Just give me as much as you can,” and listened attentively to the repetition of Paulina Paine’s story about a taxi which had waited just beyond the Square and been lost sight of in the traffic.

“She was sufficiently alarmed to go back into the house and take a taxi herself instead of walking as she had intended. She left no doubt in my mind that her experience in the gallery had been a very severe shock. She undoubtedly believed that she had become cognizant of a plot which involved robbery and murder, and the fact that one of the persons concerned in this plot had subsequently become aware of her deafness and her proficiency in lip-reading could not fail to intensify that shock. She began to fear that she might be traced and followed. Such a course would have been perfectly possible if this man had really believed her to be in possession of the highly incriminating remarks which he had made in the gallery. Do you suppose he would have hesitated over silencing her or lost any time in doing so?”

“I don’t suppose he would.”

Miss Silver continued to knit and to speak.

“When Miss Paine came to see me she was a badly shaken woman, but she was, I believe, of a very courageous and resolute disposition and she possessed a strong vein of common sense. As soon as she had relieved her mind by telling me of her experience she returned to her normal condition. She was able to dismiss the fear that she might have been followed, and to consider the impulse which had brought her to me as a trick of the nerves. She would not allow me to send for a taxi, and I am sure that when she left this room she had no idea of the possibility that her life might be in danger.”

“And you think it was?”

She gave him a very direct look.

“What do you think yourself, Mr. Bellingdon?”

He lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“No proof-probably never will be. One has one’s own ideas-” Then, with a change of manner, “And now to business.”

She was loosening some strands of the pale blue wool. Her “Yes?” held a question.

With the change in his manner there had come also a change of position. He sat up straight and said,

“I am informed that you undertake private enquiries, and that you are extremely efficient and discreet. Chief Inspector Lamb tells me that you have often been of considerable help to the police.”

He received an impression that the distance between them had somehow been increased. She gave a slight formal cough and said,

“The Chief Inspector is very kind.”

In the midst of his serious preoccupation Bellingdon experienced a twinge of amusement. He had not got where he was without certain powers of discernment. He was aware that he had been tactless, and that the Chief Inspector was considered to have presumed. He allowed his voice to become a little warmer than it would have been over an ordinary business deal.

“I should think myself very fortunate if I could persuade you to give me your professional help in this matter. You see, there are aspects to which I do not really wish to invite the attention of the police. There are, in fact, points which they couldn’t possibly handle.”

Miss Silver said primly, “I could not undertake to keep anything from the police in a case of so much gravity.”

“Quite so. Perhaps you will let me explain what is in my mind. I think you are too acute an observer not to have been struck by the stress which the murderer placed upon the danger of his being recognized. He said he wasn’t taking any chances of it, and he was prepared to do murder rather than run any risk in that direction. Well, nobody wants to be recognized when he is committing an armed robbery, but a turned-up collar and a turned-down hat with a muffler over the lower part of the fact would mess up any casual description. Now did Miss Paine describe him to you?”

“She did. But I am afraid there is not very much to be made of the description. She was a plain, downright person, and her mind was taken up with the shock she had received and the knowledge which she believed herself to have acquired. In these circumstances, her description did not go beyond the fact that the man wore a drab raincoat, that he was somewhere about thirty, and that he was of average height and complexion. The caretaker at the gallery does not seem able to add anything to this, though he appears to have had some conversation with him-and, significantly enough, upon the subject of Miss Paine’s portrait, which I understand you have purchased. He recognized it, and most unfortunately the caretaker mentioned both her deafness and her proficiency in lip-reading.”

“He recognized Miss Paine?”

“As the woman who had been looking in his direction when he made what he must have remembered as some highly compromising remarks. They could not have been overheard at the distance, but Miss Paine’s lip-reading must have suggested a dangerous possibility. We do not know, and can only surmise, the lengths to which such a conclusion might have carried him. Inspector Abbott did go round to the gallery to see whether anything could be added to Miss Paine’s description of the man she had watched.”