sections of the outline without making much of it more recognizable. They filed themselves away in the Saint's memory with mechanical precision; and yet the closeness which he felt to the mystery that hid behind them was more intuitive than methodical, a weird sensitivity that sent electric shivers coursing up his spine.
A grey-haired ruddy-cheeked doctor arrived and made his matter-of-fact examination and report.
'Three stab wounds in the chest—I'll be able to tell you more about them after I've made the post-mortem, but I should think any one of them might have been fatal. Slight contusions on the throat. She hasn't been dead much more than an hour.'
He stood glancing curiously over the other faces.
'Where's that ambulance?' said the sergeant grumpily.
'They've probably gone to the house,' said the girl. 'I'll send them down if I see them—you don't want us getting in your way any more, do you ?'
'No, miss. This isn't very pleasant for you, I suppose. If I want any more information I'll come up and see you in the morning. Will Mr Forrest be there if we want to see him ?'
Forrest took a half step forward.
'Wait a minute,' he blurted. 'You haven't——'
'They aren't suspicious of you, Jim,' said the girl, with a quiet firmness. 'They might just want to ask some more questions.'
'But you haven't said anything about Templar's——'
'Of course.' The girl's interruption was even firmer. Her voice was still quiet and natural, but the undercurrent of determined warning in it was as plain as a siren to the Saint's ears. 'I know we owe Mr Templar an apology, but we don't have to waste Sergeant Jesser's time with it. Perhaps he'd like to come up to the house with us and have a drink—that is, if you don't need him any more, Sergeant.'
Her glance only released the young man's eye after it had pinned him to perplexed and scowling silence. And once again Simon felt that premonitory crisping of his nerves.
'All this excitement certainly does dry out the tonsils,' he remarked easily. 'But if Sergeant Jesser wants me to stay——'
'No, sir.' The reply was calm and ponderous. 'I've made a note of your address, and I don't think you could run away. Are you going home tonight ?'
'You might try the Bell first, in case we decide to stop over.'
Simon buttoned his coat and strolled towards the door with the others; but as they reached it he stopped and turned back.
'By the way,' he said blandly, 'do you mind if we take our lawful artillery?'
The sergeant gazed at him, and dug the guns slowly out of his pocket. Simon handed one of them to Mr Uniatz, and leisurely fitted his own automatic back into the spring holster under his arm. His smile was very slight.
'Since there still seems to be a murderer at large in the neighbourhood,' he said, 'I'd like to be ready for him.'
As he followed Rosemary Chase and Jim Forrest up a narrow footpath away from the river, with Hoppy Uniatz beside him and the butler bringing up the rear, he grinned inwardly over that delicately pointed line, and wondered whether it had gone home where he intended it to go. Since his back had been turned to the real audience, he had been unable to observe their reaction; and now their backs were turned to him in an equally uninformative reversal. Neither of them said a word on the way, and Simon placidly left the silence to get tired of itself. But his thoughts were very busy as he sauntered after them along the winding path and saw the lighted windows of a house looming up through the thinning trees that had hidden it from the river bank. This, he realized with a jolt, must be the New Manor, and
