Wendover nodded a gloomy assent to this view.
“I expect he will,” he agreed. “Perhaps it’s a pity that young Fleetwood took that line.”
“I gave him his chance to make a clean breast of it, if he’d any reasonable tale to tell,” Sir Clinton pointed out with a trace of impatience. “All I got was a piece of guttersnipe insolence. Obviously he thinks he can get the better of us; but when it comes to the pinch, I think—”
He broke off abruptly. Wendover, glancing round, saw that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux had come into the room and was moving in the direction of their table. As she came towards them, he compared her, half unconsciously, with Cressida Fleetwood. Both of them would have been conspicuous in any group; but Cressida’s looks were a gift of Nature, whereas Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux was obviously a more artificial product. Everything about her proclaimed that the utmost care had been spent upon her appearance; and even the reined-in manner of her walk suggested a studied movement in contrast to Cressida’s lithe and natural step. Wendover noted that the wave in her red-brown hair was a permanent one, obviously too well designed to be anything but artificial.
“Now, why the deuce does one say ‘foreigner’ as soon as one sees her?” he inquired of himself. “Heaps of English girls wear dresses like that in the morning, though they may not carry them so well. And they have their hair waved, too. And her face isn’t particularly Continental-looking; I’ve seen types like that often enough in this country. It must be the way she moves, or else the way she looks at one.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux gave him a brilliant smile of recognition as she passed; then, seating herself at the next table, she took up the menu and studied it with a look of distaste on her features. Quite evidently the English breakfast was not much to her liking. After some consideration she gave her order to the waiter by pointing to the card, as if she mistrusted her pronunciation of some of the words.
Sir Clinton obviously had no desire to discuss police affairs any further, with a possible eavesdropper at his elbow. He went on with his breakfast, and, as soon as Wendover had finished, he rose from the table with a glance at his wristwatch.
“We’d better pick up the inspector and get off to Lynden Sands. I’ll bring the car round.”
At the hotel door, a few minutes later, Armadale for some reason or other seemed to be in high spirits; but he gave no indication of the cause of his cheerfulness.
A few minutes’ run along the coast brought them to Lynden Sands village, and the inspector directed Sir Clinton to Sapcote’s house. The constable was evidently on the lookout, for as they were about to knock at the door he appeared and invited them into a room where Billingford was sitting. At the first glance, Wendover was prejudiced against the man. Billingford had the air of someone trying to carry off an awkward situation by a forced jauntiness; and, in the circumstances, this jarred on Wendover. But, on reflection, he had to admit to himself that Billingford’s position was an awkward one, and that an easy demeanour was hardly to be expected under these conditions.
“Now, Mr. Billingford,” the inspector began at once, “I’ve one or two questions to ask you. First of all, why didn’t you tell the constable immediately that Staveley was a friend of yours? You must have recognised him whenever you saw the body on the rock.”
Billingford’s surprise was either genuine or else must have been very well simulated.
“Staveley, is it?” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know it was Staveley! There was a cloud over the moon when I got to the body, and I couldn’t see the face. It was quite dark then for a while—so dark that on the way there I splashed through a regular baby river on the beach. My trousers are all wet still round the boot-tops. Staveley, is it? Well, well!”
Wendover could make nothing of the man. For all he could see, Billingford might be genuinely surprised to hear of Staveley’s death. But, if he were, his emotion at the loss of a friend could hardly be called excessive.
The inspector put his next question.
“Did you know if Staveley had gone out to meet anyone last night?”
Billingford’s eyes contracted momentarily at this question. Wendover got the impression of a man on his guard, and thinking hard while he talked.
“Meeting anyone? Staveley? No, I can’t say I remember his saying anything about it to me. He went out some time round about ten o’clock. But I thought he’d just gone for a turn in the fresh air. We’d been smoking a lot, and the room was a bit stuffy.”
The inspector jotted something in his notebook before asking his next question.
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Billingford?”
Billingford’s face assumed a bland expression.
“Me? Oh, I’m a commission agent.”
“Do you mean a commercial traveller?” Armadale demanded.
A faint smile crossed Sir Clinton’s face.
“I think Mr. Billingford means that he lives by his wits, inspector. Am I correct?” he asked, turning to Billingford.
“Well, in a way, yes,” was the unashamed reply. “But commission agent sounds rather better if it gets into the papers.”
“A very proper tribute to respectability,” Sir Clinton commented drily.
“What did you know about Staveley?” the inspector went on.
“Staveley? Nothing much. Used to meet him now and again. The two of us did business together at times.”
“Was he a commission agent too?” the inspector inquired ironically.
“Well, sometimes he
