“I will be quite frank with you, Miss Cowper. I did not, because, until your very smart work in proving Mr. Brooklyn’s alibi, my best chance of getting him off was to be able to throw unexpected suspicion on someone else at the trial.”
“I call it beastly—even to think of using methods like that.”
Thomas was very suave. “But I suppose, Miss Cowper, you would not have liked to see your stepfather condemned. I had to do the best I could.”
“I don’t care. It can’t be right to throw suspicion on an innocent man like that. Do you—yourself—believe Winter did it? Why didn’t you do what he did—clear my stepfather by proving the truth of what he said?”
“Perhaps, Miss Cowper, it was because I am not so clever as you are. I have already congratulated you on the way you have managed this affair.”
“I don’t want your congratulations. Do you believe Winter did it?”
“As to that, Miss Cowper, I do not pretend to know. It is for the police, and not for me, to find out.”
Joan, on hearing this, simply turned her back on him, and walked away. Thomas very politely raised his hat to her back, told Ellery that he must be off, and hailed a passing taxi. Ellery hurried after Joan.
For a minute after he came up with her, she strode on fast, saying nothing. Then, “Don’t you think it’s beastly?” she said.
“I agree with you that Thomas is a cad, and I don’t believe old Winter had anything to do with it. And I don’t think there was any need for him to tell the police. But he probably did it, as he said, in order to get the police on our side.”
“And now they’ll all be off full cry after Winter. I suppose they will want to arrest him next.”
Ellery shook his head. “Hardly, without more evidence than they possess. But they will probably have him watched.”
There was a further silence, during which Joan continued to walk fast, staring straight in front of her. At last she said, “I’ve been thinking, and I’m sure I see what we ought to do. So far we have only been trying to prove that my stepfather did not do it. We’ve succeeded. But at this rate we shall all of us be suspected in turn. There’s only one thing for it. There will be no peace and quietness till someone finds the criminal. I don’t believe the police will ever find him. Why shouldn’t you and I find him ourselves? We haven’t done badly so far.”
Ellery whistled. “That’s a much taller order than proving your stepfather’s alibi,” he said. “But I’m game. There certainly won’t be much peace for any of us till somebody finds out who did do it. But I’m dashed if I know how to begin.”
“Neither do I, at present. We have to think it all out, and make a fresh start. Come home with me, and we’ll start planning it at once.”
“They say two heads are better than one, and I’m prepared to be your very faithful follower. But you’ll have to be Sherlock Holmes, I’m afraid.”
“Come along then, Watson. But try not to be as stupid as your namesake.”
XXIV
A Fresh Start
“Well, where do we stand now?” said Superintendent Wilson, as he turned back into the room after showing his visitors out.
“Nowhere at all, sir, I should say,” was the inspector’s discontented reply. “You have let the bird in the hand go, and all the other birds are safer than ever in the bush. Are you so sure there’s no doubt about that alibi?”
“Still harping on that, are you, inspector? Come, put the idea of Walter Brooklyn’s guilt out of your head. It’s not often I take much stock in alibis; but this one is absolutely convincing.”
“I’m not so sure, sir, all the same. At least, I’d have kept hold of the man we had got till we could lay someone else by the heels.”
The superintendent shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “That’s the worst of you, inspector,” he said, “you are impervious to evidence. You never will give up an idea when you’ve once been at the trouble of forming it. And therefore you don’t see how this morning’s business really helps us.”
“Helps us? No, I’m jiggered if I see that. If you’re in the right we are in a worse hole than ever.”
“No, my dear inspector, it does help us.” And the superintendent rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He smiled to himself as he reflected that he could see further than most people through a brick wall.
“How do you mean?” asked the inspector.
“Well, if Walter Brooklyn was not in the house, it is clear that he did not send that telephone message. But someone did send it. Who was that someone? Find him, and you find the murderer. It was clearly sent with the deliberate intention of throwing suspicion on Walter Brooklyn.”
“Yes, if you’re right about the alibi, I see that. But I don’t see that we’re any nearer to finding out who did send it.”
“Well, at least,” said the superintendent, “there are certain things to go upon. First, there is no doubt at all that the message was sent, and sent from Liskeard House. The inquiries at the Exchange prove that.”
The inspector nodded.
“That being so, is it not safe to conclude that it was sent by one of the inmates, or by the murderer, before making his escape? If the murderer was an inmate of the house, the two possibilities are reduced to one. Probably he was at any rate someone familiar with the house and the family.”
“I see,” said the inspector, and his face brightened up for the first time. “That is certainly a point. You mean that Winter could without difficulty have sent the message?”
“Doubtless he could; and so could others. Don’t jump to conclusions. I agree that it would fit in with the
