“Well, have you carried out your instructions?” he demanded.
“No, worse luck!” Armadale confessed. “Owing to that old fool’s bungling, she’s slipped through my fingers.”
Wendover’s whole ideas of the case were overturned by the inspector’s admission. He had refused to allow, even in his own mind, that Cressida could be guilty; but this sudden flight could hardly be squared with innocence by any stretch of probability.
“Tell me what happened, inspector.”
Armadale was obviously very sore. It was clear enough from his face that he felt he had muddled things just at the point when his own original theory was going to be vindicated.
“I’d put a man on to watch her here. He couldn’t do much except hang about in plain clothes and attract as little attention as possible; so he chose the entrance-hall as his lookout post, where he could keep an eye on the lifts and the stairs together. Tonight, after dinner, he saw her come down in the lift. She’d evening dress on, and nothing to protect her head; so of course he thought she was just moving about in the hotel. However, he followed her along a passage; and at the end of it she opened a door marked: ‘Ladies’ Dressing-Room.’ Well, of course, he could hardly shove in there; so he hung about waiting for her to come out again.”
“And it was the golf dressing-room with the side-entrance from the outside?”
“Of course. By the time he’d tumbled to what was up, she’d slipped off. Her golf-shoes and blazer are gone. She’s diddled us. I wouldn’t have had this happen for ever so much.”
Wendover did not feel called upon to offer any sympathy.
“What do you come to me for?” he demanded. “I know nothing about her.”
Armadale put his finger on the last phrase in the telegram.
“It’s his own car he wants, apparently. You can get it out of the garage, sir, with less fuss than I could.”
Wendover agreed, and, finding that the chief constable’s train was not due for half an hour, he went up into his room and changed his clothes. They reached the Lynden Sands station in good time; and, as soon as the train steamed in, Sir Clinton alighted, with an attaché-case in his hand.
“Well, inspector! Got your bird caged all right, I hope?”
“No, sir,” the inspector confessed shamefacedly. “She’s got clean away.”
Sir Clinton seemed both staggered and perturbed by the news.
“Got away? What do you mean? You’d nothing to do but walk up and arrest her. Why didn’t you do it?”
Armadale explained the state of affairs; and, as he told his story, the chief constable’s face darkened.
“H’m! Your landlady’s made the mess of her life this shot. And I thought I’d been in plenty of time! Come along to the car. There isn’t a moment to lose. Flatt’s cottage, first of all.”
Wendover drove them up to the headland, and Sir Clinton jumped out of the car almost before it pulled up. He opened his attaché-case.
“There’s a Colt for each of you. The first cartridge is up in the barrel, so mind the safety-catches. You may not need them; but you’d better be prepared.”
He handed a pistol to each of his companions, and pitched the attaché-case back into the car.
“Now, come along.”
When they reached the door of the cottage, the place seemed deserted.
“Drawn blank, it seems,” Sir Clinton confessed, in a tone which showed he had expected little else. “We’ll go through the place, just to be sure. This is no time to stand on etiquette.”
He smashed a windowpane with his pistol-butt; put his hand through the hole and slipped the catch; then, lifting the sash, he climbed in. Armadale and Wendover followed close on his heels. Sir Clinton produced a flash-lamp from his pocket and threw its light hither and thither until he found the oil-lamp which served to light the room. Armadale struck a match and lit the lamp. Then he followed Sir Clinton into the other parts of the house.
Wendover, left to his own devices, glanced round the sitting-room in search of he knew not what. His eye was caught by the large filing-cabinet which stood on one side of the fireplace; and he pulled out a drawer at random, lifted one of the cards, and examined it.
“11–2–16.—Left for France. At dinner: Cressida, J. Fordingbridge, P. Fordingbridge, Miss Kitty Glenluce (age 23, fair-haired, dispatch-rider; told some stories about her work). …”
He picked out another card at random and read:
“15–4–17.—Staveley’s wedding. Bride dropped bouquet when signing register. Wedding march Mendelssohn. Bride given away by P. Fordingbridge. Bridesmaids were. …”
He had no time to read further. Sir Clinton and the inspector were back again, having found no one else on the premises. The chief constable had a bottle in his hand, which he handed to Wendover, pointing to the label.
“Amyl nitrite?” Wendover asked involuntarily. “So that’s where the stuff came from that killed Peter Hay?”
Sir Clinton nodded. His eye fell on the table, on which a manuscript book was lying. He picked it up and opened it, showing the page to his companions.
“Derek Fordingbridge’s diary, isn’t it?” the inspector inquired.
“Yes. And there’s their card-index, with everything entered up in chronological order—every bit of information they could collect about the Foxhills crowd from any source whatever. That made sure that if they had to meet any questions from a particular person about his dealings with the real Derek Fordingbridge, they could turn up their index and know exactly what to say. It was far safer than trusting to any single man’s memory on the spur of the moment. I expect they’ve been copying out entries from the stolen diary and putting them into the filing-cabinet. We haven’t time to waste. Come along. The police, next. Sapcote must collect them for us and bring them along, inspector.”
As Wendover drove, it was hardly more than a matter of seconds before Sapcote had been instructed to collect all the available constables and bring them to the hotel.
“That’s our next port of call, squire.
