“And had he?”

“That’s the question. I saw the chap who did the post mortem, and he says if Felipe Cardozo broke his leg as described by José, then he isn’t the corpse, and that’s all there is about it. From which I deduce that either José really had been too hasty in the first place, or that having identified the body as his brother’s, he had now some strong reason for wishing he had held his tongue. And the reason which presented itself in rather a forcible manner was the murder of Alan Field.”

Miss Silver continued to knit in a thoughtful manner. She said,

“I see.” And then, “Pray continue.”

He did so.

“To sum up. On Tuesday morning José identifies a body as that of his brother Felipe and more or less accuses Alan Field of having murdered him for the sake of ‘a family document.’ On Wednesday night Alan Field is stabbed in a beach hut at Cliffton-on-Sea. On Thursday morning José goes to the police and says he had forgotten to mention that his brother had a broken leg, and perhaps he had been a bit too hasty in identifying the corpse. Difficult to resist the suspicion that José had had the bright thought that it would be healthier for him if he could disabuse the police of the idea that he had any motive for the stabbing. If the corpse wasn’t his brother, why kill Alan Field? Felipe might still be alive, and an affectionate brother would go on searching for him.”

“It is a possible explanation. But I think you have something more to tell me.”

“Well, I have. Just once in a way, you know, one does have a piece of luck. Do you happen to remember Ernest Pearson?”

Miss Silver thought for a moment.

“A slight stoop-thinning hair-brown eyes-and rather hollow cheeks-”

“A very good portrait. Do you remember where we ran across him?”

“Oh, yes. He was the butler at the Grange in the Porlock Case, which the newspapers would insist on alluding to as the Spotlight Murder. He turned out to be a detective employed by a private agency.”

Frank nodded.

“Yes, Blake’s. Quite reputable people. Pearson used to be in the Force, but was invalided out. He retains an immense respect for it. Well, as I was coming away from the local station I bumped into him. Not the long arm of coincidence this time, because he had heard I was on the case and was waiting for me.”

“You interest me extremely.”

“And I am going to interest you a good deal more. Pearson asked if he might have a word with me, and we walked along together. He said he wasn’t easy in his mind. Chief Inspector Lamb would speak to his character when he was in the Force, and there wasn’t anything anybody could say against him since he retired from it and entered the employment of a private firm-Blake’s being a high-class agency and not one that would lend itself to any funny business. He was very earnest about it all. There was one’s duty to one’s client, and there was one’s duty to the law. Blake’s gave good service, but if it was a case of the duty to the client coming up against the duty to the law, Pearson was of the opinion that the law had it every time, and that you couldn’t be a party to anything of, so to speak, a criminal nature, especially not when it might lead to your being involved in a murder case. And that was where I began to prick up my ears.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“I am not surprised, my dear Frank. What had he to tell you?”

Frank leaned back in his chair and regarded her with pleasure. Part of the bond between them lay in the fact that to talk to her was to be conscious of a quick and sympathetic intelligence which not only followed every point, but so stimulated and clarified his own thought as to render it capable of something just beyond its previous best. He said in his rather lazy, cultured voice,

“Quite a surprising tale. Mr. José Cardozo had employed him through his agency to trace and to shadow a Mr. Alan Field recently arrived from South America after a three years’ absence. Now Blake’s happened to know something about Alan Field. Before he left the country they had been employed by an irate husband on two separate occasions to shadow him with a view to divorce proceedings. No precise evidence was obtained, and the matter was dropped. But Blake’s learned quite a lot about Alan Field-amongst other less reputable things the fact that he had a well-to-do stepmother, and that she had a London flat where he was a constant visitor. Pearson had been employed on the case and he remembered the address. He went there on Wednesday morning, and learned that Alan Field had been there the day before and had gone on to look up his stepmother at Cliffton-on-Sea. Pearson is very good at extracting information from people who wouldn’t dream of handing it out to the ordinary pressman or detective. He describes Mrs. Field’s housekeeper as ‘a very respectable person,’ which is just what he is himself. He reported to José Cardozo. So you see, José knew Alan Field’s whereabouts and Mrs. Field’s address at Cliffton by the early afternoon of Wednesday. He knew them in time to run down there by train or car and stab Alan Field in the beach hut belonging to the house where his stepmother was staying.”

Miss Silver continued to knit. She had a thoughtful expression and she did not appear to be in any hurry to speak. Frank Abbott watched her. That she could have stayed for twentyfour hours in the same house as Alan Field or been the repository of his stepmother’s confidences regarding him without receiving some very definite impressions, he was unable to believe. To what extent she was prepared to impart them was another matter.

After a lapse of time which made him wonder whether he was to be told anything at all she said,

“I have felt uncertain in my own mind as to just what I had better do. I have no professional connection with this case, and no direct evidence to offer to the police. There are, on the other hand, certain things in the background which you will be bound to hear about, and I have been considering whether you had not better hear about them from me.”

“And you have decided?”

She did not answer his question directly.

“I have always been of the opinion that the truth is best for all concerned. The worst thing that can happen to a guilty person is to evade justice and so be able to persist in crime. This evasion may cast a terrible shadow of suspicion upon the innocent. What complicates a case like this is the fact that it is not only the criminal who may have reasons for shunning the light.”

Frank’s irreverent mind recalled a couple of lines by Owen Seaman written, to the best of his recollection, on the subject of the blackbeetle:

“He loves the dark because his deeds are evil,

He loathes the blessed light.”

He did not, however, venture to quote them.

Miss Silver continued.

“There are passages in many people’s lives which they would find it painful to disclose. There are things which they would give almost everything they possess to conceal. But to become involved in a murder case is to find a searchlight directed upon their private lives. They are very much afraid of what it may reveal, and this fear may produce the appearance of guilt.”

He nodded.

“Yes, we have seen that happen.”

“I will ask you to bear it in mind. But first, in what capacity are you here?”

He laughed.

“I got sidetracked over Pearson! As soon as I reported my conversation with him to the Chief he rang up Maynard Wood who is the Chief Constable down here, and they fixed it up between them that I should come along and have a finger in the pie. And now what have you got to tell me?”

Miss Silver pulled on her ball of pale pink wool.

“How much do you know already?”

“I have seen the statements which Colt took from the people at Cliff Edge. I hope to see the people themselves tomorrow. Do you know them all?”