“Oh, it’s that way, is it?”

“Indeed it is. They delight in imparting information about everything they do. I have no doubt at all that Anna Ball was aware that Miss Gwyneth would be waiting for her bus at the time she drove by with Mr. Sandrow.”

“You think she wanted to be seen with him?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Why?”

“I do not know. That is my first point-Mr. Sandrow is first concealed, and then obtruded. And one of the things that is obtruded is his name. She gave it to Mrs. Craddock and she gave it to Miss Elaine, and she gave it without solicitation or pressure. It looks as if she wished the name to be known. But nothing more. In each case a most natural enquiry is checked by downright rudeness. And now for my second point. If, as you conjecture, she left the Craddocks to join a lover, why was she overcome by distress?”

“Distress?”

“You told me so yourself. When you came down to make enquiries the Miss Tremletts and Miranda informed you that they had seen Miss Ball drive away with Mr. Craddock. She was wearing a red hat which the Craddocks had given her. The station-master at Dedham, where she took a ticket for London -”

“Yes, I remember-he said Craddock saw her off-a dark young woman in a red hat. And a bit about her being a good deal upset, and Mr. Craddock telling him she had been having trouble with her nerves and they were glad to be rid of her.”

“Yes. Do you remember he said that she was crying?”

“I don’t know-I think I got that impression. Let me see… No, I don’t seem to get farther than ‘a good bit upset.’ What is the point?”

Miss Silver said slowly, “If she was crying she would probably have had her handkerchief up to her face. ‘A good deal upset’ and Mr. Craddock’s explanation about nerves does to my mind suggest tears and a necessity to account for them. If she was really crying, what was the reason for those tears? But suppose she was not crying at all. Suppose they were only a pretext for the handkerchief.”

Frank whistled. “You mean?”

“I have wondered whether it was Anna Ball who got into the London train that day.”

Frank Abbott swerved to avoid a motor-bicycle emerging with great suddenness from a particularly narrow lane. After a moment he said,

“What makes you think it wasn’t?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I do not go as far as that. I merely wonder whether the young woman who got into that train was really Anna Ball.”

“And what has set you wondering?”

“The red hat.”

He repeated the words in a tone of surprise.

“The red hat!”

“Yes. From the first I have thought a good deal about that red hat. Anna Ball was not satisfied with the Craddocks, nor they with her. She was slipping out at night to meet a man about whom she told them nothing but his bare name. She had been extremely rude to Mrs. Craddock, her demeamour was reserved and sullen. Why should they go out of their way to give her a red hat? There might, of course, be other reasons, but there is one which has kept on coming into my mind. If for some reason it was desired to create the impression that Miss Ball had gone away by train when she had in fact not gone away at all, or not gone away in that manner and at that time, then the red hat would be of great assistance in producing that impression. When the Miss Tremletts say that they saw Mr. Craddock go by with Anna Ball-when Miranda and Mr. Remington corroborate this-what do you suppose these four people did actually see? They would hear the car coming, and they would look to see who was in it. They would see Mr. Craddock and a girl in a red hat. I doubt very much if they would see more than that. They would all know about the gift of the hat. Do you suppose it would occur to them that the person wearing it was not Miss Ball? If a deliberate deception had been planned, it would be easy enough for the person who was wearing the hat to turn towards Mr. Craddock as if talking to him, in which case all that would be seen by the Miss Tremletts, or by Miranda and Mr. Remington, would be a passing impression of dark hair under a red hat. As to the stationmaster at Dedham, it is most improbable that he knew Anna Ball by sight, but just in case there should be anyone in the station who had seen her at Deep End the girl in the red hat is upset. She uses her handkerchief to dab her eyes and, incidentally, to hide her face. Mr. Craddock impresses it on the stationmaster that Miss Ball has been having trouble with her nerves, and that they are glad to be getting rid of her. This would serve the double purpose of focussing the stationmaster’s attention upon the fact that Anna Ball had left Deep End and returned to London, whilst at the same time accounting for the fact that she avoided observation and kept her handkerchief up to her face.”

Frank Abbott turned a quizzical eye upon his Miss Silver.

“We do not really know that she did either.”

Her reply was in her mildest manner.

“I believe, my dear Frank, that I prefaced my remarks by the word ‘If.’ ‘If for some reason it was desired to create an impression that Miss Ball had left by train for London -if a deliberate deception had been planned.’ I certainly did not commit myself to the opinion that this had been the case. I merely wished to point out that had there been such a desire and such a plan, there would not have been any great difficulty in carrying it out.”

“Why should there have been a plan of that kind? To put it bluntly, why should Mr. Craddock desire to make away with Miss Ball? You see, this theory of yours would implicate him up to the hilt. The Miss Tremletts, Miranda, and Augustus Remington and the stationmaster are one thing-Craddock is quite another. Whoever was deceived, he couldn’t have been. If the girl he saw off at Dedham wasn’t Anna Ball, he must have known that she wasn’t.”

“Certainly he must have known it.”

“Well then, we’re back at the question of motive. Why the play-acting? Why any of it?”

“Yes-that is what I have been asking myself. And more particularly, why the gift of the red hat? I do not say there is not a satisfactory answer to these questions, but up to now none has presented itself.”

Frank Abbott said with half a laugh,

“The best answer would come from the girl herself. Pity she hasn’t been traced.”

Miss Silver answered him gravely.

“And that takes us back to the point from which we started. Where is Anna Ball?”

As they turned in at the road-house, a small car passed them, heading for Ledstow. There were two people in it. Frank Abbott noticed a couple of the figures on the number-plate. Miss Silver was aware that the driver was a woman. There was no reason why either of them should have noticed more than that. It was only a good deal later when the car had been found deserted in Miller’s Lane that they realized it was the Ledlington bank murderer and his accomplice who had passed them. The car was going very fast indeed.

Inside the café they drank tea and went on talking. The place, as Frank Abbott had said, was well adapted for private conversation. There were nooks, there were alcoves, there were comfortable chairs, and discreetly shaded lights. Having listened to all that Miss Silver had to tell him, he had a contribution of his own to make.

“You haven’t asked me how I come to be here.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Yes, I am. Do you remember my talking to you about a bank robbery at Enderby Green a month ago?”

“A very shocking affair. The bank manager was shot dead. But there was a clerk-I hope he recovered.”

Frank nodded.

“He was lucky-the bullet just missed everything that mattered. I think I told you he had been rather clever. He was making entries in red ink at the time, and he managed to get some of it on to a bundle of notes they made him hand over. Well, of course everyone has been warned to look out for those notes. The murderer naturally wouldn’t try to pass anything that was badly marked, but what the clerk did was to get a finger in the ink and smear the edge of the packet. If the colour didn’t run in beyond the edge, it might have been just possible to shave it off, so all banks were told to be on the look out for this. Well, two notes have turned up this week. A young chap called Wayne in the County Bank here spotted them. It was bright of him, because the shaving had been very carefully done. I can’t say I’d have noticed it myself if I hadn’t been on the look out for it, but under a magnifying glass you can see that the edge has been tampered with, and there is even a trace of the red ink. The Chief sent me down, and we’ve been in a huddle over it most of the morning.”