Yes, “mad” had been the right word to use. There didn’t seem to be any common sense about the thing. Even She was mad! Why swim to Abbotshall? The saving in time, he calculated, could have only been a matter of ten minutes or so. And she couldn’t—well, she must have been in hell’s own hurry. But the sandals indicated a bathing-dress, and surely the time taken to change into that might have been spent in covering the distance on dry land. And what had she been there for, outside that window of the study? She—surely She had nothing to do with that messy crime—must be interrogated. Oh, yes! His heart beat faster at the thought of seeing her again.
He rebuked himself for thus early and immorally losing interest in his task, and returned to consciousness of his surroundings. He found himself in Marling High Street.
Sir Arthur disappeared, suddenly, into a low-browed little shop, whose owner seemed, from his wares, to be an incongruous combination of grocer, tobacconist, draper and newsagent. Anthony stood looking about him. The narrow street, which should have been drowsing away that blazing August afternoon, carried an air of tension. Clumps of people stood about on its cobbles. Women leaned from the windows of its quaint houses. The shop outside which he waited, and two others across the road, flaunted shrieking news placards.
“ ’Orrible Murder of a Cabinet Minister!” Anthony quoted with a wry face. “Poor devil, poor devil. He’s made more stir by dying than he ever did in his life.”
Sir Arthur emerged, a packet of tobacco in one hand, a sheaf of newspapers in the other. With fleeting amusement Anthony noticed the red and black cover of an Owl “special.” They walked on.
The elder man glanced down at the papers in his hand. “It’s a queer thing, Gethryn,” he said, “but I somehow can’t keep away from the sordid side of this awful, terrible tragedy. Up at the house I keep feeling that I must get into that study—that room of all places! And I came this way really to buy newspapers, though I cheated myself into thinking it was tobacco I wanted. And I can’t help nosing about while the detectives are working. I expect I shall bother you.” His voice was lowered. “Gethryn, do you think you’ll succeed? He was my best friend—I⸺my nerves are on edge, I’m afraid. I—”
“Great strain.” Anthony was laconic. Conversation did not appeal to him.
He tried to map out a course of action, and decided on one thing only. He must see and talk with the Lady of the Sandal again. For the rest, he did not know. He must wait.
They walked on to the house in silence. At the front door was a car. Boyd was climbing into it. He paused at the sight of Anthony. Sir Arthur passed into the house.
Boyd was excited, respectably excited. “Where’ve you been, sir? You’ve missed all the fun.”
“Really?” Anthony was sceptical.
“Yes. I don’t mind telling you, sir, that the case is over, so to speak.”
“Is it now?”
“It is. You were quite right, sir. It was someone belonging to the house. I can’t tell you more now. I’m off back to town. I’ll see you later, sir.”
Anthony raised his eyebrows. Things were going too fast. Had Boyd found out anything about Her?
“Shalt not leave me, Boyd.” He raised a protesting hand. “ ‘The time has come, the Walrus said—’ You’re too mysterious. Be lucid, Boyd, be doosid lucid.”
The detective glanced at his watch with anxiety. He seemed torn between the call of duty and desire to be frank with the man who had helped him.
“I’ll have to be very short, then, sir,” he said, pushing the watch back into his pocket. “Ought to have started ten minutes ago. This is very unofficial on my part. I’m afraid I must ask you—”
“Don’t be superfluous, Boyd.”
“Very well, sir. After I left you in the garden this morning, I asked them all—the household—some more questions, and elicited the fact that one of what you called the ‘cast-iron’ alibis was a dud, so to speak. It was like this, sir: one of the maids had told me she’d seen Mr. Deacon—that’s the deceased’s secretary—go to his room just after ten. That coincided with what he told me himself, and also with what Sir Arthur Digby-Coates said. Now, this girl spent the time from ten until about a minute before the murder was discovered working—arranging things and whatnot, I take it—in the linen-room. Apparently it took her so long because she’d been behindhand, so to speak, and was doing two evenings’ jobs in one. This linen-room’s just opposite Mr. Deacon’s room, and the girl said last night that she knew he hadn’t come out because, having the door of this linen-room open all the time, she couldn’t have helped but see him if he had.
“But she told a different tale this morning, sir, when I talked to her after you’d left me. I wasn’t thinking about Deacon at all, to tell you the truth, when out she comes with something about having made a mistake. ‘What’s that?’ I said, and told her not to be nervous. Then she tells me that she hadn’t been in the linen-room all that time after all. She’d left it for about ten minutes to go downstairs. She was very upset—seemed to think we’d think she was a criminal for having made a slip in her memory.” Boyd laughed.
Anthony did not. “What time was this excursion from the linen-closet?” he asked.
“As near as the girl can remember, it was ten minutes or so after she saw Deacon go into his room, sir.”
“And I suppose, according to you, that this Deacon left his room while the girl was away, slipped out of the house, waited, climbed into the study window, killed his employer, climbed out again, hid somewhere till the fuss was over, got back unseen to his room, and
