“Don’t say anything, Cressida,” her husband warned her.
He turned back to the inspector.
“You’ve no power to extract evidence if we don’t choose to give it?” he asked.
“No,” the inspector admitted cautiously, “but sometimes it’s dangerous to suppress evidence, I warn you.”
“I’m not very amenable to threats, inspector,” Stanley Fleetwood answered drily. “I gather this must be something serious, or you wouldn’t be making such a fuss?”
In his reply, Armadale reinforced his caution with irony.
“It’s common talk in the hotel that there’s been a murder on the beach. Perhaps the rumour’s reached you already?”
“It has,” Stanley Fleetwood admitted. “That’s why I’m cautious, inspector. Murder’s a ticklish business, so I don’t propose to give any evidence whatever until I’ve had legal advice. Nor will my wife give any evidence either until we’ve consulted our lawyer.”
Armadale had never seen a move of this sort, and his discomfiture was obvious. The grand scene of inquisition would never be staged now; and his hope of wringing damning admissions from unprepared criminals was gone. If these two had a lawyer at their elbow when he questioned them, he wouldn’t stand much chance of trapping them into unwary statements. Wendover was delighted by the alteration in the inspector’s tone when he spoke again.
“That doesn’t look very well, Mr. Fleetwood.”
“Neither does your intrusion into a sickroom, inspector.”
Sir Clinton evidently feared that things might go too far. He hastened to intervene, and when he spoke his manner was in strong contrast to the inspector’s hectoring.
“I’m afraid you hardly see the inspector’s point of view, Mr. Fleetwood. If we had the evidence which you and you wife could evidently give us, then quite possibly we might get on the track of the murderer. But if you refuse that evidence just now, we shall be delayed in our work, and I can’t guarantee that you won’t come under suspicion. There will certainly be a lot of needless gossip in the hotel here, which I’d much rather avoid if I could. The last thing we want to do is to make innocent people uncomfortable.”
Stanley Fleetwood’s manners gave way under the combined action of his physical pain and his mental distress.
“Where do you buy your soap?” he asked sarcastically. “It seems a good brand. But it won’t wash. There’s nothing doing.”
Inspector Armadale threw a glance at his superior which suggested that Sir Clinton’s intervention had been a mere waste of time.
“When’ll your lawyer be here?” he demanded brusquely.
Stanley Fleetwood paused to consider before replying.
“I’ll wire him today; but most likely the wire will lie in his office until Monday. I expect Monday afternoon will be the earliest time he could get here, and perhaps he won’t turn up even then.”
Inspector Armadale looked from husband to wife and back again.
“And you’ll say nothing till he comes?”
Stanley Fleetwood did not think it worth the trouble to answer.
“I think you’ll regret this, sir. But it’s your own doing. I needn’t trouble you further just now.”
Armadale stalked out of the room, suspicion and indignation written large in every line of his figure. Sir Clinton followed. As Wendover closed the retreat, he saw Cressida step swiftly across to her husband’s side and slip to her knees at the edge of the bed.
VIII
The Colt Automatic
At the foot of the stairs, Armadale excused himself.
“Better have some breakfast, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested. “You’ve been up all night, and you must be hungry.”
Rather to Wendover’s relief, Armadale rejected the implied invitation.
“I’ll pick up a sandwich, probably, later on, sir; but I’ve something I want to make sure about first, if you don’t mind. Will you be ready again in half an hour or so?”
Sir Clinton glanced at his watch.
“We’ll hurry, inspector. After all, it’s about time that we took Billingford out of pawn. The constable may be getting wearied of his society by this stage.”
Inspector Armadale seemed to have no sympathy in stock so far as either Billingford or Sapcote was concerned.
“Staveley’s body has to be collected, too,” he pointed out. “I’ve a good mind to phone for some more men. We really can’t cover all the ground as we are.”
“I should, if I were you, inspector. Get them sent over by motor; and tell them to meet us at Lynden Sands. A sergeant and three constables will probably be enough.”
“Very good, sir.”
The inspector went off on his errand, much to the relief of Wendover, whose antagonism to Armadale had in no way cooled. Sir Clinton led the way to the breakfast-room, and impressed on his waiter the necessity for haste. As they sat down, Wendover saw inquisitive glances shot at their table by other guests in distant parts of the room. Evidently the news of the tragedy on the beach was common property by now.
“I don’t think Armadale made much of that business,” Wendover commented in a voice low enough to be inaudible to their nearest neighbours. “There’s nothing so undignified as a bit of bullying when it doesn’t quite come off.”
Sir Clinton never allowed a criticism of a subordinate to pass unanswered.
“Armadale did his best, and in nine cases out of ten he’d have got what he wanted. You’re looking at the thing from the sentimental standpoint, you know. The police have nothing to do with that side of affairs. Armadale’s business is to extract all the information he can and then use it, no matter where it leads him. If an official had to stop his investigations merely because a pretty girl breaks down and cries, we shouldn’t be a very efficient force in society.”
“He met his match in young Fleetwood,” Wendover pointed out, with hardly concealed satisfaction.
Sir Clinton gazed across the table with a curious expression on his face.
“For a J.P. you seem to be strangely out of sympathy with the minions of the law. If you ask me, young Fleetwood will have himself to thank for anything that happens now. Of course,
