“Now we’ll go outside and have another look at the track my dog picked up,” he announced, curtly.
Wendover followed him once more, and they emerged from the entrance near the river. Sir Clinton walked over to the tree to which the dog had led them; and then, using the scraps of paper scattered on the previous day as his guide, he crossed the grass. Once on the road, he stopped and turned to Wendover. He seemed to be still smarting under the annoyance of his blunder with the darts.
“That’s the murderer’s route, you see? He came out of the Maze obviously. Then he climbed that tree, I think you said. No doubt he was well out of danger there. No one would think of looking for him up amongst the leaves. And after that he came over here, got into his private aeroplane, and flew off—since the trail stops short.”
He glanced up and down the road.
“Just the one place where he could have done it, notice. This bit of the road is concealed from nearly every direction by these banks of rhododendrons round about.”
Wendover took no notice of the irony. He sympathised with Sir Clinton’s feelings; it required no great stretch of imagination to appreciate how a man would feel after making a mistake like that. They walked over to the car and took the road to the East Gate.
As he drove, Wendover began to fit together the new facts in the Whistlefield case. The more he recalled the state of Neville Shandon’s room, the more obvious it grew that the burglar had been searching for a document of some sort. This linked itself in his mind with the torn fragment of Neville’s notes which had been found in his hand after death. And Roger’s room had not been burgled.
“It looks like Hackleton at work,” he uttered, half-unconsciously.
Sir Clinton seemed to come out of a savage reverie at the words.
“Hackleton? Oh, you mean the burglary? It fits neatly in, doesn’t it?”
Then, in a more friendly voice than he had used since the dart incident:
“I’m sorry if I rubbed you on the raw, Squire. But you know how I hate to look like a fool; and that’s exactly what I do look like just now.”
Wendover was eager to accept the advance. He had no desire to irritate his friend. After all, everyone makes mistakes sooner or later. But as they fell into talk again a fresh idea shot through his mind; and this time he did not utter it aloud:
“Clinton hustled me off early to bed last night. He was washed-out-looking this morning. He hinted he’d done something or other that was risky. What if he was the burglar himself?”
But though he puzzled over this view of the case, it yielded very little help to him. At last he put it to the back of his mind, ready for future reference if needed.
Sir Clinton had one further surprise for him as they reached the Grange:
“Would you mind, Squire, if somebody brings a glass of boiling water, some vinegar, and some washing soda to my room as soon as possible? I’d like to have them now.”
X
The Third Attack in the Maze
When Sir Clinton came down from his room Wendover noticed that he had mastered his vexation. During lunch, both of them avoided the Whistlefield case by tacit consent; but the Squire was relieved to see that his friend’s face showed less anxiety in its expression than had been obvious at the breakfast table. Sir Clinton usually had complete control of his features and showed no more than he wished the world to see; and Wendover guessed that behind the mask the Chief Constable was still too sensitive to make the affair at Whistlefield a safe subject of conversation.
When lunch was over Sir Clinton smoked a cigarette for a minute or two in silence. Then he turned to his host.
“You might lend me your car, Squire. I ought to go down to the police station this afternoon and get some reports from the man in charge. It isn’t worth your while to come with me. They’ll only be formal affairs, I suspect; and if there’s anything striking, I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”
Wendover consented. His tact suggested that Sir Clinton would probably prefer to be alone until the first edge of his irritation had worn off.
When the Chief Constable returned, however, he had little news of importance.
“There’s no sign of the burglars so far,” he admitted. “I rang up the police from Whistlefield in the morning and put them on the alert; but they’ve picked up nothing that looks like the shadow of a clue. One could hardly expect it. Thanks to friend Ernest’s lethargic habits, a burglar could have got to the Midlands before my men even knew of the Whistlefield affair.”
“I suppose they’ve done all they can?”
“For a local lot handling a thing of this sort, they’ve really done very well. They’ve made inquiries at all the railway stations in the neighbourhood and drawn blank. No suspicious person can be traced there. They’ve done their best in the matter of motors, too; but that, of course, was rather a washout. One can’t expect them to keep tally of every car that might pass along the road. And they’ve had a regular hunt through the Whistlefield gardens to find out how the burglary was done. But there again they struck a blank end.”
“Footmarks on the flowerbed?” inquired Wendover.
“One or two beautifully rectangular impressions—that’s all. The fellow evidently tied bits of cardboard under his shoes. One hasn’t even an idea of the size of his foot. And of course friend Ernest had been stamping about all over the bed in his efforts to remove the ladder with least trouble to himself. He didn’t exaggerate when he said he was nervous. It seems he just gave the thing a push and let it fall
