It came to Justin with horror that the smudge was luminous paint.

Chapter XIX

That Saturday night brought very little sleep to the Grange. With dreadful suddenness it had ceased to be a private dwelling. Justin, whose mother had been a devoted bee-keeper, could not help being reminded of the moments when she used to remove part of the outer covering and watch through a sheet of glass the private activities of the hive. Cross the line which divides the law-abiding from the law-breaker, and all cherished rights of privacy are gone. The police surgeon, the photographer, the fingerprint man; Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Constable -each and every one of them comes and takes a look through just such a pane of glass and watches to see who shrinks from the observing eye. Murder, which used to be one of the most private things on earth, is now attended by a vast deal of ceremonial and publicity, and whilst an efficient constabulary attended to its rights Inspector Hughes sat in the study taking statements.

It was late before Martin Oakley was permitted to take his wife and her secretary back to the Mill House, and later still before those who remained could separate and go to bed if not to sleep.

At ten o’clock on the Sunday morning Detective Sergeant Frank Abbott rang up Miss Maud Silver at her flat in Montague Mansions.

“Miss Silver speaking.”

“This is Frank. I’m afraid I shan’t be able to come to tea. A bloke has got himself stabbed in Surrey, and as everyone who can possibly have done it hails from London and the corpse was London too, they’ve thrown the job at us, and the Chief and I are off. What’s the odds you crop up as we go along?”

Miss Silver gave her characteristic cough.

“That, my dear Frank, is hardly likely.”

She heard him heave an exaggerated sigh.

“I wish it were. Never a dull moment when you’re about. Uplift a speciality-morals strictly attended to.”

“My dear Frank!”

“I’m afraid it’s a case of ‘Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together.’ I must fly.”

Later on in the morning Justin rang up Dorinda.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Get any sleep?”

“Well-”

“I don’t suppose anyone did much. How is Mrs. Oakley?”

“Very upset.”

“I’d come up and see you, but I hear the job’s been turned over to Scotland Yard. They may walk in at any moment now, so I think I’d better be here. They’ll want to see everyone of course.”

There was a pause. Then Dorinda said,

“Horrid for you-but, oh, it does make such a difference your being in it too!”

He said firmly, “Neither of us is in it,” and rang off.

Actually, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb and Sergeant Abbott did not reach the Grange until a little after two o’clock, having meanwhile conferred with Inspector Hughes, gone through the statements which he had obtained, and partaken of a mediocre lunch at the local inn.

Admitted by the butler, Lamb stared hard at him before letting him take his coat and hat. Coming in out of the grey afternoon light, the hall seemed middling dark. The man threw open the first door on the right and stood aside to let them pass into the study. The Chief Inspector walked as far as the writing-table and, turning, called him.

“Come in and shut the door! You’re the butler?”

“Yes, sir.”

The light from three windows showed a middle-aged man with a slight forward stoop, thinning hair, brown eyes, and rather hollow cheeks.

Lamb said sharply, “Pearson! I thought so!”

The butler did not speak, only lifted his eyes with a deprecatory expression and stood there waiting.

Frank Abbott looked from one to the other and waited too.

Very deliberately the Chief Inspector pulled up a chair to the table and sat down. He was in the habit of judging the furniture in a house by the way in which any given chair stood up to his weight. Since this one received him without a protesting creak, it was approved. Perhaps he judged men by the manner in which they sustained his formidable stare. If so, Pearson would not come off so badly. He stood there, meek, elderly, and silent, but not very much discomposed. The stare continued.

“Pearson! My word! I didn’t expect to see you here, and I don’t suppose you thought of seeing me.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re butler here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the game?” Lamb shifted his gaze to Sergeant Abbott, who had been an interested spectator. “This is Mr. Ernest Pearson of the Blake Detective Agency. Used to be in the Force -invalided out.” He turned back again. “Come along, man- out with it! What are you doing here?”

“Well-”

Lamb gave the table a sudden bang with his fist.

“What’s the good of humming and hawing? This is murder. You don’t need me to tell you that any private game you may have had will just have to go to the wall. Why are you here?”

The mild brown eyes were still deprecatory, but not alarmed.

“I know that, sir. I was just thinking how I could put it. The fact is, it’s a bit delicate. Mr. Blake sent me down here to watch Mr. Porlock.”

“Divorce?”

“Oh, no, sir-” he hesitated, and then came out with it- “blackmail.”

Frank Abbott’s eyebrows rose. The Chief Inspector allowed himself to whistle.

A faint shade of melancholy triumph invaded Pearson’s manner as he repeated the word.

“Blackmail-that was Mr. Porlock’s business. One of our clients was in a terrible state over it-something he’d got on her, she wouldn’t tell us what. So Mr. Blake, he sent me here to see if I couldn’t get something that would scare Mr. Porlock off.”

“Blackmailing the blackmailer-eh?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

Lamb gave a short laugh.

“What else? But that’s not my pigeon. You say Porlock was a blackmailer. Have you any evidence of that?”

Pearson diffused a certain modest pride.

“Only what I’ve heard with my own ears.”

Frank Abbott had drawn a chair up to the far side of the table. His overcoat removed, he was seen to be elegantly attired -grey suit, grey socks, a blue and grey tie, a blue and grey handkerchief just showing above the line of the pocket. As always, his very fair hair was slicked back and mirror-smooth, his light eyes cool and observant, his manner cool and detached. Lamb jerked a “Notes, Frank,” over his shoulder, and the long, pale hand began to move busily above a writing-pad.

Lamb leaned forward, a hand on either knee, his body vigorous in spite of the flesh it carried, his florid face expressionless under the thatch of strong dark hair just beginning to thin away from the crown. He looked at Pearson and repeated his words.

“What you heard with your own ears? Do you mean that he was blackmailing any of these people in the house?”

The shade of triumph deepened.

“Most of them, I should say.”

“If that’s the case, you’d better pull up a chair and we’ll get down to it.”

Quietly and deferentially Mr. Ernest Pearson fetched himself a chair. When he was seated, hands folded, feet nearly together, he coughed and observed that it was a little hard to know where to begin.

Frank Abbott leaned across the table to lay a list of names before his Chief. It was received with a grunt and a nod. Lamb read from it the names of Mr. and Mrs. Tote.

“Know anything about them?”

“Oh, yes. Him and Mr. Porlock had very high words in this room after tea yesterday. By leaving the door unlatched after attending to the fire I was enabled to overhear part of what passed between them. A butler has great advantages in the line of overhearing conversations, if I may say so. What with taking in drinks, and fetching out trays, and attending to fires, he can pretty nearly always have an excuse for being close to a door, and with a centrally heated house no draught is felt if the door should be left on the jar.”