He looked keenly at the girl before him, evidently expecting something; and he was not disappointed.
“I can tell you where he was at that time,” Avice said at last. “Probably you won’t believe me, but this is true, at any rate. He and I dined together in town that evening and after dinner we went home to my house. We had a lot to talk over. We reached my house about half-past eight. And then we began to talk things over. We had such a lot to discuss that the time passed without our noticing it; and when at last he got up to go, it was between one and two in the morning. So you see he couldn’t possibly have been at the bungalow.”
Sir Clinton interjected a question:
“Why didn’t Dr. Silverdale tell us all this frankly when he was questioned about his movements during that night?”
Avice Deepcar flushed at the direct attack, but she evidently had made up her mind to make a clean breast of the whole business.
“I told you that Dr. Silverdale was with me that night from dinnertime until the early hours of the morning. As it happened, my maid was away that day and did not return until the next afternoon. You must have a pretty good idea of what people would have said about me if they got to know I’d been alone with Dr. Silverdale in my house. I shouldn’t have cared, really; because there was nothing in it. We were simply talking. But I expect that when you questioned him he thought of my position. He’s a married man—at least he was a married man then—and some people would have twisted the whole business into something very unpleasant for me, I’m sure. So I think, knowing him well, that he very likely didn’t want to give me away. He knew he’d had nothing to do with the murders, and I expect he imagined that the real murderer would be detected without his having to give any precise account of his doings on that night. If I’d known that he was running the risk of arrest, of course, I’d have insisted on his telling what really happened; but I’ve been out of town and I’d no idea things had got to this pitch.”
Flamborough intervened as she paused for a moment.
“Your maid was away that night? Then you’ve got no one else who could give evidence that Dr. Silverdale was with you during that crucial period?”
Avice seemed to see a fresh gulf opening before her.
“No,” she admitted, with a faint tremor in her voice. “We were quite alone. No one saw us go into the house and no one saw him leave it.”
“H’m!” said Flamborough. “Then it rests on your own evidence entirely? There’s no confirmation of it?”
“What confirmation do you need?” Avice demanded. “Dr. Silverdale will tell you the same story. Surely that’s sufficient?”
Before Flamborough could make any comment on this, Sir Clinton turned the interview back to its original subject.
“I should like to be clear about the other matter first, if you please, Miss Deepcar. With regard to this police raid on your house, as you called it, can you tell me something more about it? For instance, you say that I produced my card. Was that card preserved?”
“No,” Avice admitted. “My maid tells me that you only showed it to her; you didn’t actually hand it over to her.”
“Then anybody might have presented it?”
“No,” Avice contradicted him. “My maid recognised you. She’d seen your photograph in a newspaper once, some months ago, and she knew you from that.”
“Ah! Indeed! Can you produce this maid? She’s not out of town at present or anything like that?”
“I can produce her in a few moments,” Avice retorted with obvious assurance. “She’s waiting for me somewhere in this building at the present time.”
Sir Clinton glanced at Flamborough and the Inspector retired from the room. In a very short time he returned, bringing with him a middle-aged woman, who glanced inquisitively at Sir Clinton as she entered.
“Now, Marple,” Avice Deepcar demanded, “do you recognise anyone here?”
Mrs. Marple had no hesitation in the matter.
“That’s Sir Clinton Driffield, Miss. I know his face quite well.”
Flamborough’s suspicion that his superior had been moving in the background of the case were completely confirmed by this evidence; but he was still further surprised to catch a gleam of sardonic amusement passing across the face of the Chief Constable.
“You recognise me, it seems?” he said, as though half in doubt as to what line to take. “You won’t mind my testing your memory a little? Well, then, what kind of suit was I wearing when I came to your house?”
Mrs. Marple considered carefully for a moment or two before replying:
“An ordinary suit, sir; a dark one rather like the one you’ve got on just now.”
“You can’t recall the colour?”
“It was a dark suit, that’s all I can remember. You came in the evening, sir, and the light isn’t good for colours.”
“You didn’t notice my tie, or anything like that?”
“No, sir. You’ll remember that I was put about at the time. You gave me a shock, coming down on me like that. It’s the first time I ever had to do with the police, sir; and I was all on my nerves’ edge with the idea that you’d come after Miss Avice, sir. I couldn’t hardly get to believe it, and I was all in a twitter.”
Sir Clinton nodded sympathetically.
“I’m sorry you were so much disturbed. Now have a good look at me where the light’s bright enough. Do you see anything that strikes you as different from the appearance I had that night?”
He moved across to the window and stood patiently while Mrs. Marple scanned him up and down deliberately.
“You haven’t got your eyeglass on today, sir.”
“Ah! Did you say eyeglass or eyeglasses?”
“Eyeglass, sir. I remember you dropped it out of your eye when you began to read Miss Avice’s letters.”
“Apart from the eyeglass, then, I’m much the
