Prenderby spoke weakly from the bed.
“I should like to corroborate all Dr. Abbershaw has told you,” he said. “Do you think you could make that do, Inspector?”
“It’s not strictly in accordance with the regulations,” murmured Pillow, “but I think under the circumstances we might stretch a point. I’ll ’ave your name and address and I won’t bother you two gentlemen no more.”
After Prenderby’s name, age, address, and telephone number had been duly noted down in the Inspector’s notebook, Abbershaw spoke.
“I suppose we may set off for Town when we like, then?” he said.
“Just whenever you like, sir.”
The Inspector shut his notebook with a click, and picking up his hat from beneath his chair, moved to the door.
“I’ll wish you good day, then, gentlemen,” he said, and stalked out.
Prenderby looked at Abbershaw.
“You didn’t tell him about Coombe?” he said.
Abbershaw shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“But surely, if we’re going to make the charge we ought to do it at once? You’re not going to let the old bird get away with it, are you?”
Abbershaw looked at him curiously.
“I’ve been a damned fool all the way through,” he said, “but now I’m on ground I understand, and I’m not going to live up to my record. You didn’t hear what Dawlish said to us last night, but if you had, and if you had heard that old woman’s story, I think you’d see what I’m thinking. He didn’t murder Coombe.”
Prenderby looked at him blankly.
“My head may be still batty,” he said, “but I’m hanged if I get you. If the Hun or his staff aren’t responsible, who is?”
Abbershaw looked at him fixedly, and Prenderby was moved to sarcasm.
“Anne Edgeware, or your priceless barmy crook who showed up so well when things got tight, I suppose,” he suggested.
Abbershaw continued to stare at him, and something in his voice when he spoke startled the boy by its gravity.
“I don’t know, Michael,” he said. “That’s the devil of it, I don’t know.”
Prenderby opened his mouth to speak but he was cut short by a tap on the door. It was Jeanne and Meggie.
“This will have to wait, old boy,” he murmured as they came in. “I’ll come round and have a talk with you if I may, when we get back.”
“May Michael be moved?” It was Meggie who spoke. “I’m driving Jeanne up to Town,” she explained, “and we wondered if we might take Michael too.”
Prenderby grinned to Abbershaw.
“As one physician to another,” he said, “perhaps not. But speaking as man to man, I don’t think the atmosphere of this house is good for my aura. I think with proper feminine care and light conversation only, the journey might be effected without much danger, don’t you?”
Abbershaw laughed.
“I believe in the feminine care,” he said. “I’d like to come with you, but I’ve got the old A.C. in the garage, so I must reconcile myself to a lonely trip.”
“Not at all,” said Meggie. “You’re taking Mr. Campion. Anne and Chris are going up with Martin. Chris’s car is hopeless, and Anne says she’ll never drive again until her nerves have recovered. The garage man is taking her car into Ipswich, and sending it up from there.”
“Where’s Wyatt?” said Prenderby.
“Oh, he’s staying down here—till the evening, at any rate.”
It was Jeanne who spoke. “It’s his house, you see, and naturally there are several arrangements to make. I told him I thought it was rather terrible of us to go off, but he said he’d rather we didn’t stay. You see, the place is quite empty—there’s not a servant anywhere—and naturally it’s a bit awkward for him. You’d better talk to him, Dr. Abbershaw.”
Abbershaw nodded.
“I will,” he said. “He ought to get away from here pretty soon, or he’ll be pestered to death by journalists.”
Meggie slipped her arm through his.
“Go and find him then, dear, will you?” she said. “It must be terrible for him. I’ll look after these two. Come and see me when you get back.”
Abbershaw glanced across the room, but Jeanne and Michael were too engrossed in each other to be paying any attention to anything else, so he bent forward impetuously and kissed her, and she clung to him for a moment.
“You bet I will,” he said, and as he went out of the room he felt himself, in spite of his problems, the happiest man alive.
He found Wyatt alone in the great hall. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, in which the cold embers of yesterday’s fire still lay.
“No, thanks awfully, old boy,” he said, in response to Abbershaw’s suggestion. “I’d rather stay on on my own if you don’t mind. There’s only the miserable business of caretakers and locking up to be seen to. There are my uncle’s private papers to be gone through, too, though Dawlish seems to have destroyed a lot of them. I’d rather be alone. You understand, don’t you?”
“Why, of course, my dear fellow …” Abbershaw spoke hastily. “I’ll see you in Town no doubt when you get back.”
“Why, yes, I hope so. You do see how it is, don’t you? I must go through the old boy’s personalia.”
Abbershaw looked at him curiously.
“Wyatt,” he said suddenly, “do you know much about your uncle?”
The other glanced at him sharply.
“How do you mean?” he demanded.
The little doctor’s courage seemed suddenly to fail him.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, and added, somewhat idiotically, he felt, “I only wondered.”
Wyatt let the feeble explanation suffice, and presently Abbershaw, realizing that he wished to be alone, made his adieux and went off to find Campion and to prepare for the oncoming journey. His round cherubic face was graver than its wont, however, and there was a distinctly puzzled expression in his grey eyes.
It was not until he and Campion were entering the outskirts of London late that evening that he again discussed the
