“I wonder why they brought such a large card-index down with them from town.”
Armadale was taken aback.
“Card-index, sir? Where was it?”
“I noticed it in their sitting-room as we passed the open door. It’s one of these small cabinet affairs.”
The inspector had no suggestion to offer; and Sir Clinton did not seem to be anxious to pursue the matter. A few yards farther on he halted, and pointed to something at the edge of one of the puddles.
“Doesn’t that footprint seem a bit familiar, inspector? Just measure it, will you?”
Armadale’s eyes widened as he looked.
“Why, it’s that 3½ shoe!” he exclaimed, stooping over the mark.
“I noticed it as we were coming up, but it didn’t seem to be the best time for examining it,” Sir Clinton explained. “Now, inspector, that’s a permanent kind of puddle. The chances are that this mark was made before last night’s rain. It’s on the very edge of the water now, not the place where a girl would step if she could help it. The puddle’s filled up a bit since she made it.”
“So she was Staveley’s visitor last night?”
“It looks like it,” Sir Clinton agreed. “Now measure it carefully, inspector.”
Armadale produced his tape-measure and took various dimensions of the mark. When he had risen to his feet again, Sir Clinton looked back at the cottage. Billingford and his companion were on the doorstep, eagerly gazing towards the police party.
“Give it a good scrub with your foot now, inspector, if you’ve quite finished with it. We may as well give Mr. Billingford something to guess about. He’s a genial rascal, and I’d like him to have some amusement.”
The inspector grinned broadly as he rubbed his boot vigorously over the soft mud, effacing the print completely.
“I’d like to see his face when he comes down to look at it,” he said derisively, as he completed the work of destruction. “We couldn’t have got much of a cast of it, anyhow.”
When they reached Sir Clinton’s car, Armadale took leave of them.
“There’s one or two things I’ve got to look into,” he explained, “and I’ll get some food between whiles. I’ll come along to the hotel in about an hour or so, if you don’t mind waiting there for me, sir. I think I’ll have something worth showing you by then.”
He threw a triumphant glance at Wendover, and went off up the street. Sir Clinton made no comment on his subordinate’s remark, but started the car and drove towards the hotel. Wendover saw that nothing was to be got out of the chief constable, and naturally at the lunch-table the whole subject was tabooed.
Armadale did not keep them waiting long. They had hardly left the lunch-table before he presented himself; and Wendover noted with dismay the jubilant air with which the inspector came forward to meet them. He carried a small bag in his hand.
“I’d rather be sure that nobody overhears us, sir,” he said as he came up to them. “And I’ve some things to show you that I don’t want talked about in public yet.”
He tapped the bag as he spoke.
“Come up to my room, then, inspector. We’ll be free from interruption there.”
They took the lift up; and, when they entered the room, the inspector turned the key in the door behind them as an extra precaution.
“I’ve got the whole case cut and dried now, sir,” he explained with natural exultation in his voice. “It was just as I said this morning—as easy as falling off a log. It simply put itself together of its own accord.”
“Well, let’s hear it, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested as soon as he could edge a word into the current of the inspector’s paean.
“I’ll give you it step by step,” the inspector said eagerly, “and then you’ll see how convincing it is. Now, first of all, we know that the dead man, Staveley, married this Fleetwood woman during the war.”
Wendover flinched a little as he identified “this Fleetwood woman” as Cressida. This was evidently a foretaste of the inspector’s quality.
“From what we’ve heard, one way and another, Staveley was nothing to boast about,” Armadale went on. “He was a bad egg, evidently; and especially in the way that would rasp a wife.”
“That’s sound,” Sir Clinton agreed. “We needn’t dwell on it.”
“He disappears; and she thinks he’s dead,” the inspector pursued. “She’s probably mighty glad to see the end of him. After a bit, she falls in with young Fleetwood and she marries him. That’s bigamy, as it turns out; but she doesn’t know it then.”
“One can admit all that without straining things much,” Sir Clinton agreed. “Go on, inspector.”
“The next thing is that Staveley turns up again. I don’t suppose he appeared in public. That wouldn’t be his game. These Fordingbridges have money; and, from what we’ve heard, Staveley wasn’t scrupulous about transferring other people’s money to his own pocket.”
“Nothing that could be shaken, so far,” Sir Clinton encouraged him. “Go ahead.”
“Very well,” the inspector went on. “He writes her a letter evidently trying to put the screw on her, and asking for an appointment on the quiet. She must have been taken a bit aback. She’d been living with young Fleetwood for the best part of a year. It’s quite on the cards that she’s—”
He broke off, glanced at Wendover’s stormy countenance, and evidently amended his original phrase:
“That perhaps young Fleetwood and she weren’t the only people who might be hit by the business when it came out.”
“So that’s your notion of the motive, is it?” Sir Clinton commented. “Well, it’s ingenious, I admit. I didn’t quite see how you were going to work up a case on the strength of a mere accidental bigamy, for nobody would think much about that. But
