“I’ll do my best, sir. But it doesn’t look to me very hopeful.”
“Oh, never say die. Even if we could not find out the whole truth for ourselves—and I believe we can—there is plenty of chance still for the murderer to give himself away. In my experience that is how ninety-nine out of a hundred murderers get caught—I mean of those who do get caught at all. You watch Winter carefully, but don’t jump to the conclusion that he’s guilty. Watch them all: keep your eyes and your mind wide open. We’ll pull it through yet.”
“But,” said the inspector, unable any longer to keep back the question, “if you think neither Walter Brooklyn nor Winter did it, who do you think did?”
“If I knew that, my dear inspector, I shouldn’t be giving you these instructions. The real criminal may be someone quite outside our previous range of suspicion. Indeed, I shan’t be at all surprised if he is.”
“But you mean that the immediate thing is to go fully into these new aspects of the case?”
“Quite so. Do that, and report progress. And remember to keep your eyes wide open for anything that may turn up. We must trust largely to luck.”
As Inspector Blaikie left Superintendent Wilson’s room, he was in a curiously divided state of mind. At one moment he still said to himself that all his good labour could not have been wasted, and that Walter Brooklyn must really be guilty after all. The next he found himself assuming, with greater assurance, that Winter was the murderer. He was one of those men who can only keep their minds open by entertaining two contrary opinions at the same time. He shook his head over what seemed to him the weakness of his superior in letting Walter Brooklyn go without arresting someone else.
Meanwhile, in the lounge at Liskeard House, Joan and Ellery were sitting very close to each other on a sofa making their plans for the discovery of the criminal.
“How had we better begin?” he asked, running his hand despairingly through his hair.
“I can see only one way,” Joan replied. “We have nothing to go upon—nothing, I mean, that would make us suspect any particular person. So the only thing to do is to suspect everybody—to find out exactly where everybody was when the crime was committed, and what they were doing that evening.”
“That’s something of an undertaking.”
“I don’t mean all the world. I mean everybody who was, or was likely to have been, in this house. Of course, it may have been someone quite different; but I think that’s the best way to start. And we mustn’t rule out anybody—even ourselves—however sure we are they had nothing to do with it. Even if that doesn’t find the criminal, it may help us to light on a clue.”
“But it is still a tall order. We don’t even know at what time the murders were committed.”
“Isn’t that a good point to begin upon? Let me see. When were George and John last seen alive?”
“Both at some time after eleven. George was seen leaving the house at half-past, and Prinsep was seen rather before that time in the garden. Isn’t that so?”
“Then that,” said Joan, “definitely fixes the time of both the murders as being later than say 11:15, and one of them definitely after 11:30. That is something to go upon.”
“Ah, but stop a minute. May not either the people who thought they saw George, or the others who thought they saw John, have been mistaken? Neither of them was seen close to.”
“It doesn’t seem very likely. Winter would hardly have mistaken someone else for George when he saw him going out by the front door.”
“Still, my dear, it’s possible. Winter was at the other end of the hall and only noticed him by accident. He probably caught no more than a glimpse.”
“Yes, Bob; but the other man saw him from quite close. You remember he said he went to open the door for him; but George slipped out before he could get there.”
“Yes, I know; but did the other man know George by sight? He was only a hired waiter, in for the evening. Winter probably told him afterwards it was George, and he took it for granted.”
“I think you’re romancing, my dear. If it wasn’t George, who was it?”
“Surely, Joan, in that case it was the murderer, whoever he may have been.”
Joan sighed. “Follow up that idea of yours by all means,” she said, “but it doesn’t sound to me very hopeful. The people who said they saw John are much more likely to have been mistaken. They only saw him from a window some way off; and it was half dark.”
“Do you know, Joan, I’m half inclined to believe that neither of them was really seen then at all. What I mean is, they may both have been dead by half-past eleven. Suppose they were neither of them seen. Yes, and by Jove, that would get rid of one difficulty. I’ve never been able to see how George got back into the grounds after the place was all locked up. But suppose he didn’t have to get back at all, because he never went out. Then the man who went out, and was mistaken for George, would be the murderer. Joan, aren’t you listening?”
“Yes, Bob, I heard what you said, and I half think you’re right. I was thinking of that telephone message.”
“Why, what about it?”
“What I mean is, if that message was sent with the object of shifting the suspicion on to someone else, isn’t it more likely to have been sent after, than before, the murders?”
“You’re right. At least, it was probably sent after one of them. There’s no necessary reason to suppose that they were both done at the same time. We don’t even know that the same man did them.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Two murders in one
