Randal March said, “Well?”

“Well, sir, does that leave any doubt in your mind that Miss Cray’s reason for hurrying up to Melling House was to warn Mr. Lessiter that he might apprehend some act of violence on the part of Mr. Carr Robertson?”

Randal March smiled a little more pleasantly.

“If she took the trouble to go and warn him, then she didn’t murder him. You’re trying to have it both ways, Drake. I’m afraid you can’t do that.”

Drake’s eyes narrowed between the red lashes.

“Wait a minute, sir-I don’t think you’ve got the point. When she came up to warn him she didn’t know about that will. They say he’s worth the best part of half a million. You might come up to warn a man, and change your mind about it if it was going to mean half a million in your pocket.”

Randal March had himself very well in hand. He maintained the exact shade of attention due to an efficient subordinate with whose conclusions it is impossible to agree. He had the air of giving due weight to the supposition that a hypothetical half million might have inspired Rietta Cray to hammer out a man’s brains with a poker. Attention having been given to this theory, he shook his head.

“Not in character, I’m afraid.”

Superintendent Drake pursued the theme.

“There’s evidence which is going to take a lot of explaining away, if you don’t mind my saying so. After refusing to explain why she was in such a hurry, Miss Cray says in her statement that she picked up the first coat she came to-they hang in the passage, and she went out by the back door. The coat she did take was an old one of Mr. Robertson’s. It has a plaid lining with a yellow stripe in it. Mrs. Mayhew’s statement refers to this. When she went back to the study the second time and opened the door this coat was hanging over a chair. A bit of the lining showed, and she describes it. One of the sleeves was hanging down, and she says the cuff was all over blood. Miss Cray explains this by saying she scratched her wrist coming up through the wood. But mark this, sir-all the right side of that coat had been sponged down. It was hanging in among the others in the passage, and all one side of it still wet. I sent it right away to see what a test could make of it, and this is what I’ve got. I was on the phone to them, the last thing before coming out, and they say there are traces of human blood over the whole damp area. The right cuff must have been fairly drenched-there’s quite a lot left along the stitched seam and where the lining is doubled over. There’s no doubt at all that the staining was very extensive, and a great deal more than could be accounted for by a surface scratch. Miss Cray showed me her wrist, and the scratch theory just won’t wash.”

March turned over the sheets in front of him and picked one up.

Drake went on speaking.

“The only thing that would account for the condition of the coat is that it was worn by the murderer.”

March looked up from the sheet he was holding.

“Mrs. Mayhew particularly says in her statement that she heard no sound in the room on this second occasion. That would point to Miss Cray having left. There is no proof that she was wearing the coat when it became so deeply stained. If she scratched her wrist as she says, there might have been enough superficial staining to attract Mrs. Mayhew’s attention. And the murderer’s. Somebody else’s coat with somebody else’s blood on it would be a bit of luck, not to be counted on, but certainly not to be overlooked.”

“You are putting forward the theory that Miss Cray went home without her coat-it was a very cold night-and that someone else put it on to murder Mr. Lessiter. If that is so, how do you account for the fact that the coat was hanging up in her hall and had been washed? There is, of course, just one thing that would account for it-I’ve thought of that myself. If Mr. Carr Robertson came up to Melling House after Miss Cray had left he could have slipped on the coat-it was an old one of his own, you remember-and when he had done the murder he would only have to walk back to the cottage and make the best job he could of cleaning up the mess he had got it into. There’s no doubt where that job was done. There’s a little wash-place at the end of the passage. We found a smear on the underside of the basin, and a couple of splashes of blood on the floor-there’s a dark linoleum and they didn’t show. The coat must have been reeking wet when it was taken in there. I suppose they thought they had cleaned up, but there’s usually something gets overlooked.”

Randal March sat appalled. This was evidence which couldn’t be dismissed with a shake of the head. Not evidence against Rietta-there reason continued to block the way-but the possibility of a strong case against Carr Robertson. If last night he had really identified James Lessiter with the seducer of his wife, it might prove to be a damnably strong case.

And Carr wasn’t making any statement.

May I come in, dear?”

Mrs. Voycey, who was doing accounts, turned her head. She beheld Miss Silver attired for walking, in her second-best hat which resembled her best so closely that it would have been indistinguishable from it but for the fact of being trimmed with a band of plain petersham instead of an abundance of satin loops. In either case there was a small nosegay of flowers on the left-hand side, but the everyday bunch was smaller, older, flatter, and consisted of a tired wallflower in a pale circle of mignonette, repeating the tones of the elderly fur neck-tie much treasured for its draught-excluding qualities. The black cloth coat remained the same whether it was Sunday or weekday, and so did the neat black laced shoes and black woollen stockings which it was Miss Silver’s habit to wear from October to April, and sometimes beyond if the spring was a cold one.

Having entered and closed the door gently behind her, Miss Silver coughed. A capacious handbag depended from her wrist, and she wore black knitted gloves. She said,

“Such a terribly raw day. I hope I do not disturb you, Cecilia, but I have just received an invitation to lunch. I thought that you would have no objection to my accepting it.”

Mrs. Voycey was amiable but surprised.

“An invitation to lunch?”

“Yes, Cecilia-from Miss Cray.”

Mrs. Voycey said, “Oh-”

Since the arrival of the milkman with the first intelligence of James Lessiter’s death the village news-service had been extremely active. Mrs. Crook had “popped out” to the general shop for a packet of cake-mixture, a thing which she ordinarily despised, and had there encountered a niece of Mrs. Fallow’s who had almost, if you might put it that way, seen Mrs. Mayhew. The niece had been inspired to “step up” to Melling House with an offer of neighbourly assistance, and if she hadn’t actually seen Mrs. Mayhew, she had seen and talked to Mrs. Fallow who had only just left her.

“Can’t hardly lift her head, pore thing,” said Mrs. Crook, retailing the interview to Mrs. Voycey and her guest. “They’ve had the doctor to her, and he says it’s the shock, and Mrs. Fallow’s to stay and not to let her set her hand to anything. And from what Mrs. Fallow says there’s been enough to give her a shock-blood everywhere, and Miss Rietta Cray’s coat soaked with it up to the elbow.”

Mrs. Voycey said, “Nonsense, Bessie!”

Mrs. Crook stood her ground.

“That’s what Mrs. Fallow told her niece, and she come straight from Mrs. Mayhew that saw it. And they do say the pore gentleman left everything to Miss Cray, and the will lying there right under his hand with his blood on it. Mr. Mayhew seen it when he found the body, and he says it’s right enough someone had been trying to burn it, because it was scorched all down one side.”

“Rietta Cray wouldn’t harm a fly,” said Mrs. Voycey.