'A good thing the rain has come,' he said.
'It's been hanging about too long.
I hope you're feeling better.'
I murmured something, I don't know what, and he stood there looking from one to the other of us, rubbing his hands.
'I think you realize', Maxim said, 'that I haven't brought you out on an evening like this for a social half-hour before dinner.
This is Jack Favell, my late wife's first cousin.
I don't know if you have ever met.'
Colonel Julyan nodded.
'Your face seems familiar.
I've probably met you here in the old days.'
'Quite,' said Maxim.
'Go ahead, Favell.'
Favell got up from the sofa and chucked the paper back on the table.
The ten minutes seemed to have sobered him.
He walked quite steadily.
He was not smiling any longer.
I had the impression that he was not entirely pleased with the turn in the events, and he was ill-prepared for the encounter with Colonel Julyan.
He began speaking in a loud, rather domineering voice.
'Look here, Colonel Julyan,' he said, 'there's no sense in beating about the bush.
The reason why I'm here is that I'm not satisfied with the verdict given at the inquest this afternoon.'
'Oh?' said Colonel Julyan, 'isn't that for de Winter to say, not you?'
'No, I don't think it is,' said Favell.
'I have a right to speak, not only as Rebecca's cousin, but as her prospective husband, had she lived.'
Colonel Julyan looked rather taken aback.
'Oh,' he said. 'Oh, I see.
That's rather different.
Is this true, de Winter?'
Maxim shrugged his shoulders.
'It's the first I've heard of it,' he said.
Colonel Julyan looked from one to the other doubtfully.
'Look here, Favell,' he said, 'what exactly is your trouble?'
Favell stared at him a moment.
I could see he was planning something in his mind, and he was still not sober enough to carry it through.
He put his hand slowly in his waistcoat pocket and brought out Rebecca's note.
"This note was written a few hours before Rebecca was supposed to have set out on that suicidal sail.
Here it is.
I want you to read it, and say whether you think a woman who wrote that note had made up her mind to kill herself.'
Colonel Julyan took a pair of spectacles from a case in his pocket and read the note.
Then he handed it back to Favell.
'No,' he said, 'on the face of it, no.
But I don't know what the note refers to.
Perhaps you do.
Or perhaps de Winter does?'
Maxim did not say anything.
Favell twisted the piece of paper in his fingers, considering Colonel Julyan all the while.
'My cousin made a definite appointment in that note, didn't she?' he said.
'She deliberately asked me to drive down to Manderley that night because she had something to tell me.
What it actually was I don't suppose we shall ever know, but that's beside the point.
She made the appointment, and she was to spend the night in the cottage on purpose to see me alone.
The mere fact of her going for a sail never surprised me. It was the sort of thing she did, for an hour or so, after a long day in London.