“That would apply to Dale Jerningham as well as to his cousin Rafe.”

“It would apply to Mr. Dale Jerningham, to Mr. Rafe Jerningham, and also to Lady Steyne.”

“And you seriously believe that her life has been attempted by one of these three people?”

“Has been – and will be again.” She paused, and added, “Is that not your own opinion, Randal?”

He pushed his chair back.

“Neither your opinion nor mine is of very much value. What we want is evidence, and so far all the evidence in this case is lumped into the scale against the wretched Pell. I went over and saw Rafe Jerningham this morning – that’s where I’ve been – and a more useless, profitless morning I never spent. I saw Mrs. Jerningham first. She’s a very good witness, and she was quite clear about the coat. She wore it last on Sunday evening. Rafe brought it to her. Rafe helped her on with it – faint prints on the collar all present and correct. He certainly didn’t take hold of her by the shoulders in the way he would have had to in order to leave those much clearer, fresher prints. And no one else touched her at all. She went straight in, took the coat off, and hung it up in a cupboard in her bedroom. She wasn’t anywhere near her husband. The rather uncertain prints may or may not be his. The one in the middle of the back may have been done at some other time. It’s all mixed up with Pell’s prints. But Rafe Jerningham did take hold of that coat and whoever was wearing it, and as his prints are the freshest of the lot, he took hold of it on Wednesday night. Only I can’t prove that.”

“Did he offer any explanation?”

March laughed.

“Oh, yes – slick as you please. He’d fetched his cousin’s coat and helped her on with it. And that was that. There aren’t any flies on Mr. Rafe Jerningham. He knows as well as you and I do just how much of that prints stuff would go down with a jury. Can’t you hear him in the box? ‘Of course I touched the coat. I brought it to Mrs. Jerningham and I helped her on with it. I should think my prints would be pretty well all over the place.’ I tell you he grinned in my face – and asked me to come up and have a friendly game of tennis when I wasn’t on duty.”

Miss Silver got up.

“I must not take up any more of your time.”

He said, “Wait! About Mrs. Jerningham – was she going to take your advice – change her will?”

She shook her head with an air of concern.

“I’m afraid not. She did not say, but – I am afraid not.”

March went to the door, but stopped there without opening it.

“I’ve gone as far as I can. The Chief Constable is very insistent that there should be no scandal unless we’ve got evidence that can be taken to a jury. I’ve let Rafe Jerningham see that he’s under suspicion, and that’s as far as I can go. You can’t give a girl police protection in her own home. Could you induce her to go away, do you think?”

Miss Silver shook her head again.

“What would be the use of that, my dear Randal? An accident may happen in one place just as easily as in another.”

“In fact,” said March grimly, “accidents will happen. I have often wondered what proportion of them were really murders.”

“A good many,” said Miss Silver. She paused, and added, “It is a very shocking thought.”

IT was not until they were having coffee under the cedar after lunch that anyone mentioned the Inspector’s visit. It was Lisle who mentioned it and immediately had reason to wish that she had held her tongue.

Alicia yawned ostentatiously.

Rafe – what had happened to Rafe? Something – but she couldn’t have said what. She was not looking at him, or he at her, but for a fantastic moment it was just as if a wire ran tightly stretched between them and from his end of it there had come – well, that was just it, she didn’t know what. Shock – anger – surprise – fear – a signal – a warning? She didn’t know.

It was all over in a flash, and they had emerged into the reality of Dale’s anger.

“March? When did he come?”

“This morning, when you were out.” She sounded as she looked, a little bewildered, like a child who has offended without quite knowing how.

Dale set down his coffee cup with a bang.

“And no one told me – no one thought it worth their while to mention it? What did he want – and why wasn’t I told about it? Or didn’t he want anything at all? A social visit perhaps! Are we going to have that damned policeman walking in and out all day and every day?”

Rafe tilted his head back against the canvas of his chair.

“Probably. But why so heated? It might be worse. He’s quite a nice chap when he isn’t being a policeman, I should think.”

“What did he want?”

“To see me – and Lisle.”

“What for?”

Rafe’s eyes were half shut. He gazed through his lashes at the heavy green of the cedar overhead.

“Fingerprints,” he murmured – “on Lisle’s coat, you know – some new process. Naturally the whole thing would be plastered with our prints. That’s the worst of being such a united family.”

“Mine?” interjected Alicia. There was so much sarcasm in the word that the colour rushed to Lisle’s face.

“And mine – and Dale’s,” said Rafe amiably. “Possibly William’s and Evans’ – probably Lizzie’s. A nice bag of tricks for our modern scientific police. You put ’em in a hat and shake ’em up, and then you put in your hand and pick your murderer.”

Alicia said, “Really, Rafe!”

Dale laughed angrily.

“Quit fooling and tell me what happened!”

Rafe opened his eyes and sat up.

“Oh, nothing. We’re all still here – no gyves on any wrist, though I think he had his eye on mine. You see, I helped Lisle on with that coat last time she wore it, and our imaginative Inspector is all het up over some especially clear prints which I must have left on it then.”

Dale stared at him in a kind of horror.

“You don’t mean to say the man suspects one of us!”

Rafe Jerningham leaned sideways and stubbed out his cigarette on the short, dry turf.

“He has a nasty suspicious mind,” he said. “He’d suspect his own grandmother for twopence.”

“But it’s insane!” said Dale. “Cissie Cole! Good heavens – what possible motive could any of us have had?”

There was a pause. Lisle didn’t look at any of them. She looked down at the dry turf between her feet – short, burnt grass with the colour scorched out of it. It was in the shade now, but presently the sun would reach it again. The shadow of the cedar would shift away from it and the scorching would go on. She heard Rafe say in his pleasant casual voice,

“Oh, one can always think up a motive. In March’s place, I could produce half a dozen.”

After a moment Dale said in a horrified tone,

“Rafe, you don’t seriously mean-”

Rafe got up.

“March does. He hasn’t got any evidence of course – he’d never dare take those prints to a jury. He knows that, and he knows that I know it. We had quite a pretty fencing match – honours easy. But we’ll have to watch our step, I think. All of us.”

Alicia Steyne turned her eyes upon him. He was smiling, a hand in his pocket getting out a cigarette-case. She said, in her high, sweet voice,

“Why have you gone back to that old battered thing? What have you done with the one Lisle gave you for your birthday?”

With the shabby old case in his hand, he smiled at her. Then he snapped it open and took out a cigarette.

“It’s gone missing. It will turn up again all right.”

“Missing? Since when?”

“Oh, a day or two. Have you seen it?”

Alicia looked at him, then she looked away.

“Perhaps.”

“Mysterious – aren’t you? Well, I’m not offering a reward, so it’s no good holding on for one.” He strolled away.

From where she sat Lisle could see glimpses of his light shirt amongst the trees on the seaward slope. He walked slowly, aimlessly – the perfect picture of an idle young man with the whole summer afternoon to idle in. But there was the funeral – Cissie’s funeral-