hurry.’
‘What is that?’ demanded Johnson, the truculence rising again in his countenance. ‘Are you making a charge, man — is that what you would be saying?’
‘I’m expressing an opinion, blast you!’ retorted Sir Daynes hastily. ‘Dyson, get on with the job, and see what this feller has to say for himself.’
Dyson, chastened but ugly-looking, did as he was bid. Certain facts had come to their knowledge, he said, as a result of which they thought that Johnson might like to add to his previous statement. Johnson, perhaps, knew to what he was referring?
The Welshman sneered. ‘I know as well as yourself. You have got out of Wheeler that I think Mrs Page is a fine woman — and who, among those present, will call me a liar?’
‘Our information, Johnson, goes further than that. We are given to understand that you are infatuated with Mrs Page.’
‘Infatuated, he says! There’s a good copper’s word for you!’
‘Do you deny the truth of that?’
‘Aye, unless you can find a better word for it.’
‘You will be advised not to prevaricate, Johnson. Do you deny the truth of it?’
The Welshman looked at him with profound contempt. ‘I have said what I have said. Find me a better word.’
‘Stuck on her, man!’ broke in Sir Daynes impatiently. ‘Sweet on her — in love, by gad! You know what the inspector means.’
‘You have given me the word.’ Johnson was silent for a moment. ‘I need not tell you this, and hard would it be for you to prove it. But I am not a liar, no, and I am not a murderer either, whateffer ideas you have in your mind this moment. So I will tell you the truth, and care nothing what you make of it. I am sacredly fond of poor Mrs Page.’
‘Hah!’ exclaimed Sir Daynes, moving closer in his excitement. ‘Sacredly fond, eh? That’s a new way of putting it.’
‘New it may be, but true it is also. I would not have you think that I thought of her wrongly.’
‘But you didn’t like Earle hanging around, all the same, eh?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Feller was a Yank — might not have been so sacred?’
‘I will not conceal that I often thought otherwise.’
‘And that’s why you had it in for him?’
‘That is one reason.’
‘Best one of the lot, eh? Sort of reason that might lead to something.’
Sir Daynes eased back in triumph, leaving the ex-miner to Dyson. It was only by an effort that the baronet was restraining himself from rubbing his hands. Dyson, his prey restored, hastened to apply the coup de grace.
‘May I make a suggestion, Johnson?’
The Welshman said nothing.
‘May I suggest that you now tell us the truth about what happened the night before last?’
‘Read it,’ said Johnson briefly.
‘Read it?’ Dyson was thrown temporarily out of his stride.
‘Read it, I said. Did you not take it down yesterday?’
‘Not what you said yesterday!’ yapped Dyson. ‘I’m talking about the truth. And it wasn’t the truth when you pitched us that yarn about going to the library for a book that night, was it? You’d got a far better reason for leaving a nice snug bed. Do you want me to tell you what it was? Shall I jog your memory about how you got Earle out on the landing?’
‘I am not a liar!’ exploded the Welshman, his anger suddenly flaring up once more.
‘You’re not, aren’t you?’ Dyson was well under way. ‘But I think we’re going to prove otherwise, my fine hot- tempered Welshman. Do you think the police are stupid? Do you think they can’t put two and two together? They can, you know, and a good deal faster than you seem to think. Now — when did you slip Earle that message that Mrs Page wanted to meet him in the great hall?’
‘I have not slipped any message.’
‘Then how did you get him out there?’
‘I did not get him out there.’
‘He was sleepwalking, was he?’
‘I told you, he was arguing with a woman.’
‘You admit he was there, then?’
‘I admit what I have said.’
‘Yes, and you’ve just said that he was there — I thought you said you weren’t a liar?’
Gently sighed to himself and rose quietly from his window seat. He had heard it all before… His whole life seemed to have been spent listening to policemen trying to make bricks without straw.
‘Think I’ll take a stroll…’ he murmured to the absorbed Sir Daynes.
‘Eh?’ replied the baronet. ‘Here, just a minute, Gently!’
He dragged himself away from the proceedings and accompanied Gently to the door.
‘Well — what do you think now?’ he demanded. ‘Hasn’t Dyson got him rocking, eh? And a blasted assault charge for a bonus — feller played right into our hands.’
Gently smiled at Sir Daynes’s enthusiasm. ‘I wouldn’t force the pace too much, though.’
‘Force the pace?’ Sir Daynes sounded incredulous. ‘Why, the feller will talk himself to the gallows!’
Gently shook his head unconvincedly and opened the door. Sir Daynes watched him go, an injured expression dawning on his patriarchal face. He was beginning to understand how certain superintendents of his ken could feel when the Central Office man was treading on their sacred toes.
CHAPTER NINE
Somewhere about the great house thirty or forty people were disposed, but, as always, it seemed entirely deserted. The multiplicity of rooms, their size, the thickness and solidity of the walls, all these contributed to a sensation of emptiness, remoteness and uncanny silence. Referring to his guide, Gently set off to find the south- east wing. His way took him along the entire front of the house, passing through the great hall, and though this must have been one of the principal thoroughfares he met not a soul on his journey.
The south-east wing was vaguely similar in layout to the north-east, and a brief reconnaisance brought him to the room corresponding to the yellow drawing room. He knocked and entered. The five tapissiers sat in a subdued group about the hearth. Closing the door behind him, he went across to the group, and stood for a moment warming his hands at the blaze.
‘Not intruding, I hope?’
‘Naw.’ It was Percy Peacock, the bald-headed little Lancastrian, who answered him.
‘I should think it’s warmer outside than it is in the state apartments.’
‘Ah, it’s a proper boom-noomber out there.’
Gently pulled out Dutt’s pipe, now beginning to lose its rough edge, and filled it with leisurely fingers. They watched him silently. He could guess at the conversation he had interrupted. Three men, three women, diverse in age, character and district, the weavers were one jealous unit when it came to interference from outside. It mattered nothing that Johnson had made himself unpopular. That was purely a domestic problem. When trouble came to him, he was first and foremost a weaver — like the Musketeers of fable, they were one for all and all for one.
‘Got a light, anyone?’
Percy Peacock produced a box of Swan.
‘I got fed up with the interrogation… thought I’d give you people a look. The local boys don’t seem to be getting very far with the case.’
