“According to these letters,” he observed, “there seems to have been a trifling but rather curious misunderstanding. In accordance with written instructions of a fortnight previously, you had arranged to let a certain farm to a certain man, and Sir Reginald then complained that you had overlooked a conversation between those dates in which he had cancelled these instructions. He writes with a warmth that clearly indicates his own impression that this conversation had been perfectly explicit and that your forgetfulness or neglect of it was unaccountable, and he proposes to go into this and one or two other matters in the course of a conversation with you which should have taken place that afternoon. You then reply that you are too busy to come out so soon, but will call on the following morning. In the meantime Sir Reginald is murdered, and so the conversation never takes place and no explanation passes between you. Those are the facts, aren’t they?”
He looked up from the letter book as he spoke and there was no doubt he noticed something now. Indeed, the haggard look on Simon’s face and a bead of perspiration on his forehead were so striking, and so singular in the case of such a tough customer, that the least observant—or the most circumspect—must have stared. Carrington’s stare lasted only for the fraction of a second, and then he was polishing his eyeglass with his handkerchief in the most indifferent way.
A second or two passed before Simon answered, and then he said abruptly:
“Sir Reginald was mistaken. No such conversation.”
“Do you mean to tell me literally that no such conversation took place? Was it a mere delusion?”
“Er—practically. Yes, a delusion.”
“Suicide!” declared Carrington with an air of profound conviction. “Yes, Mr. Rattar, that is evidently the solution. The unfortunate man had clearly not been himself, probably for some little time previously. Well, I’ll make a few more enquiries, but I fancy my work is nearly at an end. Good morning.”
He rose and was halfway across the room, when he stopped and asked, as if the idea had suddenly occurred to him:
“By the way, I hear that Miss Farmond was in seeing you a couple of days ago.”
Again Simon seemed to start a little, and again he hesitated for an instant and then replied with a grunt.
“Had she any news?” asked the other.
Simon grunted again and shook his head, and Carrington threw him a friendly nod and went out.
He maintained the same air till he had turned down a bye street and was alone, and only then he gave vent to his feelings.
“I’m dashed!” he muttered, “absolutely jiggered!”
All the while he shook his head and slashed with his walking stick through the air. There was no doubt that Mr. Carrington was thoroughly and genuinely puzzled.
XXXII
The Sympathetic Stranger
Carrington’s soliloquy was interrupted by the appearance of someone on the pavement ahead of him. He pulled himself together, took out his watch, and saw that it was still only twenty minutes past twelve. After thinking for a moment, he murmured:
“I might as well try ’em!”
And thereupon he set out at a brisk walk, and a few minutes later was closeted with Superintendent Sutherland in the Police Station. He began by handing the Superintendent a card with the name of Mr. F. T. Carrington on it, but with quite a different address from that on the card he had sent up to Mr. Rattar. It was, in fact, his business card, and the Superintendent regarded him with respectful interest.
After explaining his business and his preference for not disclosing it to the public, he went briefly over the main facts of the case.
“I see you’ve got them all, sir,” said the Superintendent, when he had finished. “There really seems nothing to add and no new light to be seen anywhere.”
“I’m afraid so,” agreed Carrington. “I’m afraid so.”
In fact he seemed so entirely resigned to this conclusion that he allowed, and even encouraged, the conversation to turn to other matters. The activity and enterprise of the Procurator Fiscal seemed to have particularly impressed him, and this led to a long talk on the subject of Mr. Simon Rattar. The Superintendent was also a great admirer of the Fiscal and assured Mr. Carrington that not only was Mr. Simon himself the most capable and upright of men, but that the firm of Rattar had always conducted its business in a manner that was above reproach. Mr. Carrington had made one or two slightly cynical but perfectly good-natured comments on lawyers in general, but he got no countenance from the Superintendent so far as Mr. Rattar and his business were concerned.
“But hadn’t he some trouble at one time with his brother?” his visitor enquired.
The Superintendent admitted that this was so, and also that Sir Reginald Cromarty had suffered thereby, but he was quite positive that this trouble was entirely a thing of the past. There was no doubt that this information had a somewhat depressing effect even on the good-humoured Mr. Carrington, and at last he confessed with a candid air:
“The fact is, Superintendent, that I have a theory Sir Reginald was worrying about something before his death, and as all his business affairs are conducted by Mr. Rattar, I was wondering whether he had any difficulties in that direction. Now about this bad brother of Mr. Rattar’s—there couldn’t be trouble still outstanding, you think?”
“Mr. George Rattar was out of the firm, sir, years ago,” the Superintendent assured him. “No, it couldna be that.”
“And Mr. George Rattar certainly died a short time ago, did he?”
“I can show you the paper with his death in it. I kept it as a kind of record
