March said,

“Or what?”

“Or that she did not.”

“You suggest?”

“That the body was not that of Luke White. If she had realized this she would, I think, have known that her husband must be a party to the murder. She knew him to be a most unscrupulous man. She may have known more than that, but she had once cared for him very much, and she had suddenly to decide whether she would shield him or give him away. I think all her behaviour is accounted for if you accept the theory that she made up her mind to shield him.”

“But, my dear Miss Silver-” March broke off. “Are you suggesting that the murdered man was-”

“Albert Miller.”

Frank Abbott straightened up. March leaned forward.

“Albert Miller!”

“I think it possible.”

“But-was there any likeness?”

“Oh, yes, a very strong one. They were both grandsons of the disreputable Luke, old Jeremiah Taverner’s fourth son. Luke White was the elder, and much the stronger character, but the resemblance was very decided. I was struck by it as soon as I saw them.”

“You did see them together?”

“They were practically side by side whilst we were having coffee in the lounge on Saturday night. Even the difference in dress and the fact that one man was drunk and the other sober could not disguise the likeness. I do not mean that I would have mistaken one for the other in life, because there was a very obvious divergence of character, but if I had been shown the dead body of one dressed in the clothes of the other, I cannot say whether I would have suspected anything.”

“Then what makes you suspect anything now?”

Miss Silver gazed at him thoughtfully.

“The fact that Albert Miller should have such a perfect alibi and then disappear completely. It struck me as so extremely odd that I was unable to believe it had no bearing upon the murder. Yesterday evening I saw Albert Miller’s landlady and discovered the following facts. There was no light in the passage or on the stairs on Saturday night when her lodger came in, and both were still dark when he left in the morning. Mr. Wilton spoke to him at the bedroom door, but he was dazzled by the beam of a small torch which, as Mrs. Wilton put it, ‘that Albert kept flickering across his face.’ Mr. Wilton identified the man with the torch as Albert Miller because they were expecting Albert Miller and he was singing a song which they associated with Albert. I myself and everyone in the hotel had heard Albert singing snatches of this song, the well known Irish air ‘Eileen alannah.’ ”

March said,

“Albert Miller may not have been seen by the Wiltons, but he was seen at Ledlington station.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“In what circumstances? From what Inspector Crisp said, the man supposed to be Albert Miller arrived at Ledlington station soon after seven o’clock, when it would still be dark. He was wearing Albert Miller’s clothes, and had all the appearance of a person who has been drinking heavily and is not yet sober. He did not go on duty, but shouted out that he had had enough of his job and of Ledlington, and that he was not coming back. If this man was really Albert Miller, why did he go near the station at all? Why did he not simply leave the Wiltons’ house and disappear? But if he was Luke White, his appearance at the station was part of the plan to make it quite clear that Albert Miller had disappeared of his own free will.”

Frank Abbott said,

“If there was a plan to murder Albert Miller and cover it up in the way you suggest, Luke White would have to disappear- permanently. Well, there might be quite good reasons for that. Things were getting a bit hot for him at this end. He may have thought he’d be safer in France. I’ve always thought that if there was any funny business going on here, any backstairs traffic in dope and diamonds, that Luke would be in it up to his eyes.”

March turned in his chair.

“If the dead man was Luke, Albert Miller couldn’t have killed him. But the alibi works both ways. If it was Albert who was murdered, you can’t pin it on Luke. Whichever of them it was who was keeping Mrs. Wilton awake by tossing and turning overhead whilst she heard the church clock strike twelve, and one, and two, he wasn’t murdering the other somewhere between half past twelve and half past one at the Catherine-Wheel.” He turned back to Miss Silver. “This is a very interesting theory, you know, but where is the motive? If the murdered man was Luke White, there is a very strong jealousy motive both for John Higgins and for Florence Duke, and the bare possibility of a blow struck in self-defence by the girl Eily. But what motive would there be for the murder of Albert Miller?”

“A very strong one, Randal. I cannot offer any proof of it, but I suspect that he was engaged in a highly dangerous attempt at blackmail. He threw out hints to Mrs. Wilton that he might soon be rich. I think he knew too much, and was attempting to use his knowledge.”

“What could he have known?”

“My dear Randal, from first to last in the case there has cropped up the question of a secret passage or a secret room. That it was not the passage between the cellars and the shore is proved by the fact that Mr. Jacob Taverner not only knew all about this passage but was quite willing to display it to his guests and to the police, whereas he continually plied the Taverner cousins with carefully contrived questions as to what they might have heard from the grandparents with whom each had been rather closely associated. These questions strongly suggest a second passage, or perhaps merely a secret chamber, the existence of which was known to Mr. Jacob Taverner, but of whose whereabouts he was ignorant. I have thought all along that this second passage might prove to be of immense importance in the case. I think most of the Taverner cousins know something about it. Florence Duke may have passed her knowledge on to her husband, and so may Annie Castell. If these two men were making money out of their knowledge, and Albert Miller was using what he knew to blackmail them, you have a motive which would account for the events of the last few days.”

There was a hint of humour in March’s eyes, but he said quite gravely,

“Since you know everything, are you going to tell us who killed Al Miller?”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I am afraid I do not know.”

Frank Abbott allowed himself a short laugh.

“Not Castell?”

“Possibly. But there was more than one person concerned. I am quite sure that the murder was not committed where the body was found. Albert Miller was more than half drunk when I saw him in the lounge. He became very noisy, and was hustled through into this room by Luke White and Castell. I do not think he ever left it alive. It would have been easy to complete the process of making him drunk, to give him a wound on the back of the hand corresponding to that which Luke White had received when he tried to kiss Eily and she picked up Jane Heron’s scissors to defend herself, and then, when the right time had arrived, to inflict the fatal stab and convey the body to the hall. As I have said before, I think that two people must have been involved in this. There is no one in the house of sufficiently powerful physique to make sure of moving a dead body from this room to the hall without noise.”

Randal March said,

“I agree to that. But all the rest is, if you will let me say so- well, pure hypothesis.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I only ask that you should put it to the test. I suggest that Mrs. Wilton should be approached. She was a friend of Mrs. Miller’s, and must therefore have known Albert from a child. She might be aware of some distinguishing mark. Then, as to the scene of the murder, the carpet may provide you with evidence.”

She put little Josephine’s dress into her workbag and rose to her feet.

“I feel sure that I can leave the matter in your hands. But with regard to Florence Duke there is a point which deserves your attention. If she committed suicide shortly after I had seen her lock herself in her room, can you tell me why she did not just walk to the edge of the cliff behind the house and throw herself over? The tide was high and she would have fallen into the water. Do you think it possible that any woman would climb in the dark to the top of the cliff and throw herself down upon rocks?”