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‘Well, anyhow,' said Peter, still in the same heavy and sombre tone, ‘it wasn't Marsden shot Sir Christopher, you may be sure of that. But I'm not sure Marsden didn't do the job with the safe. Of course, I know I oughtn't to say that, it's libellous, I suppose... anyhow I mean to make sure about our clients' money. I'm more or less responsible there. My father made the firm, it was nothing when he joined it and he made it, and I'm not going to quit till I've made sure everything's all right – or isn't. I told Marsden so quite plainly when I turned down what he offered me to quit then and there, and if anyone ever looked murder, he did. So I told him I would give you people a hint where to begin to look, if anything happened to me.'

‘I see,' said Bobby, though not quite certain yet whether Peter were in earnest. ‘Only I hope he won't, because we've got one murder on our hands already, and it's quite enough. I take it, Mr Carsley, you've no actual information you can give us to connect Mr Marsden with the robbery here.'

‘I know no more than you do,' Peter told him.

‘Which isn't much,' Bobby remarked. ‘You said just now you weren't quite certain Sir Christopher was murdered? What did you mean?'

‘Oh, nothing,' Peter answered.

‘Mr Carsley,' said Bobby, ‘both you and Mr Lester are a little too fond, in such a serious affair as murder, of saying things that then you say mean nothing.'

‘Well, it's all such a fog,' protested Peter, rather more meekly than Bobby had quite anticipated. ‘What actually happened isn't known for certain yet, and till it is, I'm lawyer enough to want to take nothing for granted. That's all.'

‘Not even a dead man with two bullets in him?'

‘Above all, not a dead man with two bullets in him,' replied Peter, very gravely.

‘I'm going. Good night,' Mark interrupted abruptly. He walked away quickly, and a moment or two later they heard his car departing. Peter said:

‘Good example. I'll follow it, it's late.'

‘One moment,' Bobby said. ‘What you've told me about Mr Marsden is serious. I shall have to report it.'

‘I suppose I meant you to,' Peter agreed. ‘It looks to me as if he's got to stop me or or it's got to come out if he has been playing tricks with clients' money. And there's no way of stopping me – except one.'

Bobby made no comment, but he was inclined to be of the same opinion, as he remembered Peter's square chin and jaw and the hard lines his mouth could set into.

‘That's all,' said Peter. ‘Good night.'

He went back into the house and after a pause for reflection Bobby went round to the back. Seeing there was still a light, he knocked gently. He had made a half promise that morning to the favourably disposed cook that he would do his best to watch over them and the house, so as to protect them against any more robberies or murders. His fulfilment of this promise as evinced by his appearance even at this hour was therefore warmly welcomed. Lewis was more than cordial, and produced an excellent whisky, after recommending an old port that during his master's life he would never have dared to dream of laying a finger upon. Bobby, however, preferred the whisky. The cook, the parlourmaid, the housemaid, and the ‘tweenie', all assured him in turn that now they would be able to sleep in peace, after this proof of watchful guardianship, which had, as the cook said, relieved them all from the fear of waking up in the morning with their throats cut. Also Bobby learnt that already the domestic staff knew that the marriage between Brenda and Mark was now to take place as soon as possible.

On the whole, it seemed the domestic staff approved, though admitting that it did not seem quite respectful to the memory of ‘poor Sir Christopher, and him not in his grave yet, and them talking of marrying already'.

‘But it's not as if it was her own father,' the cook pointed out; and they all agreed that Miss Brenda, who had almost frightened them before by the stillness and so to say ‘intensity' of her manner, had seemed much better and more normal recently.

‘I heard her laugh, almost natural like,' said the parlourmaid.

‘Uplift somehow, if you know what I mean,' said the housemaid. ‘I didn't use to think she cared for Mr Lester much, but the way she looked at him to-night...'

‘Beautiful,' said the ‘tweenie' rapturously, and though ‘tweenies' are only there to be seen and not heard, her remark touched such responsive chords in the bosoms of the others that she escaped all rebuke.

It was with no very welcoming expression that Superintendent Mitchell looked up when Bobby was shown next morning into his room at Scotland Yard. His desk was piled high with papers, before him were different sets of reports on three different cases, all requiring immediate attention and all needing to be read through and digested before the daily routine interview with the Assistant Commissioner. His air was formidable as he said:

‘What do you want? Do you think I've nothing better to do than waste my time with every three-year man who thinks he would like a chat?'

‘Orders were to report personally, sir,' answered Bobby, facing the storm bravely, without betraying any sign that his heart was in his boots.

‘If you had anything new and important to say,' growled Mitchell. ‘How the dickens did you manage to get them to send your name in?'

‘I told them I wanted to see the Assistant Commissioner,' explained Bobby.

‘You did... what?' gasped Mitchell. ‘The Assistant Commissioner,' he repeated on a rising scale. ‘Oh, you did... and what did they say to that?'

‘Oh, a lot of things,' answered Bobby. ‘All different,' he added.

‘Suppose they had taken you to him?'

‘Well, sir, I risked that, one has to risk something,' Bobby answered. ‘So when they wouldn't, I told them a superintendent would do.'

Mitchell fairly bounded in his chair.

‘You told them a superintendent would do?' he repeated faintly. ‘Young man, is that what they taught you at Oxford?'

‘Oh, no, sir,' answered Bobby, shocked.

‘What do they teach you at Oxford?' demanded Mitchell.

‘I'm told it's where,' Bobby explained, ‘they teach an English gentleman to be an English gentleman.'

‘Well, now, is that it?' said Mitchell, much interested. ‘Well, I've often wondered and now I know.' With a sudden change of manner he added: ‘Now, Owen, out with it, and unless it's something to justify your infernal cheek, you're for it.'

‘Mr Lester informed me yesterday,' said Bobby, ‘that Dr Gregory owed Sir Christopher money and was being pressed for payment.'

Mitchell flung an expert and practised hand into the thick of one of the paper jungles before him, extracted a paper, and looked at it.

‘Two hundred and twenty-five pounds,' he said. ‘Stated by Dr Gregory to have been repaid. No trace of this alleged repayment can be traced in Sir Christopher's accounts either private or at the office, but his private accounts seem only rough notes. Dr Gregory produced an I.O.U., torn in half and with pen drawn through. States same was returned to him when payment was made. States same was cash payment.' He put the paper back and looked at Bobby. ‘Any information to add to that?' he demanded ominously.

‘No, sir,' said Bobby, and before Mitchell could hurl the thunderbolt he evidently had in readiness, Bobby proceeded with a brief account of his expedition in Mark's company to ‘The Green Man' the night before and of the results.

Mitchell put his thunderbolt by, listened attentively enough, and when Bobby had finished said:

‘Go away. Write out a full report. Come back with it.'

Bobby took a document from his pocket and laid it on the table.

‘The report, sir,' he said.

Mitchell took it up and looked at it.

‘When you've been a bit longer than three years in the Force,' he observed, ‘you'll know better than to forget the red ink ruling – this has none at all.'

‘Sorry, sir,' said Bobby, a trifle dashed.

‘You'll never get on in the Force,' Mitchell told him, ‘if you forget your red ink. Is this sketch the one you say you made of the man Mr Lester talked to?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Have to get it reproduced,' said Mitchell. ‘Been more useful if it had been a photograph, though. Still, have to do the best with what we've got – important to trace him. Got any idea what it all means?' And then as Bobby hesitated, he added: ‘Out with it, never mind how silly it is.'

Thus encouraged, Bobby obeyed.

‘It did just occur to me as possible,' he said, ‘that it was Lester himself who shot Sir Christopher. Miss Laing's first story was that she saw him outside the drawing-room window just before the murder was committed, and though she denies it now, it may be true all the same. Lester seemed extraordinarily keen on discovering the murderer and it struck me that might be merely an attempt to mislead us. If that's so, and it's really Lester himself who's guilty, is it possible that the man in “The Green Man” knows, and told Lester so, and that's why he was so frightfully upset – at finding his guilt was known. If so, that would be why he got the man away before I had a chance to speak to him.'

‘It's possible,' agreed Mitchell, ‘but doesn't seem very likely. I don't know, though. At any rate, it's clear this man knew something that Lester had no idea he knew. We've got to find him somehow and find out what it is he does know. But if that's the way of it, why should that make Lester rush off to get Miss Laing to marry him immediately?'

‘I heard Lester say something about going abroad. He might think the marriage would be an excuse for getting out of the country. Or he might think it would help to divert suspicion if he married the dead man's daughter.'

‘Stepdaughter,' corrected Mitchell. ‘What motive could he have if he's guilty? Sir Christopher's death apparently means that Miss Laing gets nothing instead of the very large sum she would have been entitled to, if he had lived long enough to complete the settlement he intended. One doesn't murder in order to deprive the girl one's going to marry of a fortune – at least, I never heard of a case.'

‘Would Lester realize that, sir?' Bobby asked. ‘Is it possible he thought he would take a bigger share of the estate if Sir Christopher died intestate?'

‘Most people would know better,' Mitchell remarked. ‘Most people know stepchildren aren't blood relatives.' He dived again into the piled-up papers before him and successfully extracted the one he wanted. ‘Miss Laing was aware of her stepfather's intentions,' he said. ‘She knew that in the case of his death intestate, she would not be entitled to anything. Miss Laing has shown documents proving that she knew all that. Presumably if the girl knew, Lester would know, too. Are you quite sure Lester was really as disturbed and troubled last night as you say?'

‘Yes, sir,' answered Bobby with conviction. ‘I can't describe it. Whatever it was he found out... it wasn't that he seemed afraid exactly or just surprised or anything like that... the barmaid said he had the “horrors” and so he had – but not from drink. It was what he had been told had given him the “horrors”, and he looked it, too. The “horrors”, that was it.'

‘And yet he wouldn't tell you what it was,' Mitchell mused, ‘and denied there was anything at all and went off full tilt to persuade the girl to marry him as soon as possible? Can't see much sense to it. Most likely the explanation is simple enough, but what is it? Bear looking into, anyhow.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Bobby.

‘Pity,' Mitchell remarked, ‘you let “The Green Man” fellow get away. Once you had traced him you ought to have stuck to him.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Bobby.

‘Suppose you think you couldn't guess Lester would behave like he did, getting the fellow away on the quiet after being so keen on asking you to help him, and so it's no fault of yours?'

‘Well, sir,' Bobby answered, considering, ‘it wouldn't happen like that again, and so I suppose it oughtn't to have happened like that then.'

‘But it did,' Mitchell pointed out severely. ‘The fact is, you made a bloomer, young man.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Bobby meekly.

‘When I find one of my men who doesn't make bloomers,' declared Mitchell, ‘I'll put him in a glass case, along with a harp and crown, and leave him there. I believe I've read somewhere that it's the general who makes the fewest mistakes who wins the war. Well, it's the detective who makes the most bloomers who gets to the superintendent's chair – “believe the man who knows”. Because why? Because the man who makes the most bloomers makes the most successes as well, the two being naturally twins.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Bobby.

‘I suppose you didn't notice what size feet he had?'

‘Short, broad, and rather on the small side,' answered Bobby. ‘He couldn't possibly have made the footprint in “The Cedars” garden.'

‘Anyhow, I suppose you would have recognized him, if he had been identical with the man who spoke to Doran; I forgot for the moment you saw him, too. But who was that old boy and where does he come in? And if that was his footprint, what was he doing in “The Cedars” garden? Possibly he had nothing to do with it, only then why did he tell Doran it was suicide? Then you say your “Green Man” chap said it wasn't murder and that Carsley said the same thing? What's that mean?'

‘It must be murder,' Bobby pointed out, ‘a man can't shoot himself twice through the heart, either by accident or on purpose.'

‘I know that,' retorted Mitchell. ‘The point that's worrying me is why so many of them seem to want to go out of their way to say it wasn't murder. You say that Lester, after being told whatever he was told in “The Green Man”, went straight to find Miss Laing? Is it possible there's something she knows? Does he want to marry her with the idea of preventing her from giving evidence against him? I wonder if that can be it. Only what can she know? There's fairly strong evidence she was playing the piano the whole of the time. It's just possible there was a break nobody noticed, but her stepsister says there wasn't, and the parlourmaid girl seems quite sure – says she'll take an oath there was no break and that she was listening the whole time. Then there's Gregory. He owed Sir Christopher money, but Sir Christopher was a valuable patient – a hundred or more every year. You report he was a long time before giving the alarm. That might be to give someone a chance of escape, only why should he? Then there's Peter Carsley. With him, we always come back to the fact that he had a good solid reason for wanting the old man out of the way. That Sir Christopher was shot that day meant to Carsley he had married a rich woman instead of a pauper. Do you think there's anything in this talk of his about his partner being likely to murder him?'