“You have no idea where it is now?”
“Not the faintest.
He certainly didn’t bring it back here.”
He bent toward me, wary and intent.
“Ah,” he said. “So you know it has disappeared!
Now that’s interesting.
I call that very interesting.
Who told you that it had disappeared?
Not Amos. He was warned.
Mr. Blake himself, perhaps?”
“No.
It was Walter Somers.
Amos told him.” He sat back.
“By and large,” he said, “we have too many detectives on these crimes. And the family seems to be curiously interested, doesn’t it? For a family with nothing to conceal. Now, I would like a description of that stick, if you don’t mind.”
There was nothing else to do.
Much as I loathed the idea I was obliged to describe the thing, the heavy knob, the knife concealed in the shaft.
“This blade now, was it sharp?”
“Absolutely not.
But I daresay Jim had it sharpened. He would have had to, if he had meant to commit a murder.”
But my sarcasm was a boomerang.
“It may interest you to know that he did just that, Miss Bell.
About a week after he got it.”
He gave me little time to worry about that, however.
“There is something else I want to verify.
On the night Sarah Gittings was murdered, Mr. Blake telephoned here, I believe; to Miss Judy.
At what time was that?”
“Shortly after seven.
A quarter past, possibly.”
“That was a message from Miss Judy’s mother, I gather?”
“Yes, but he—”
I checked myself, too late.
He was bending forward again, watching me.
“But what?”
“I have just remembered.
He asked if Sarah was here; but that is in his favor, naturally.
If he had known he need not have asked.”
“Or if he did know, and wished to give the impression that he did not.”
He sat there looking at me, and for the first time I realized that he was potentially dangerous to me and mine.
His china blue eyes were cold and searching; under his bald head his face was determined, almost belligerent.
And he was intelligent, shrewd and intelligent. Later on I was to try to circumvent him; to pit my own wits against his.
Always he thwarted me, and often he frightened me.
In his way, almost to the very end, he remained as mysterious as Sarah, as aloof as Florence Gunther, as implacable as fate itself.
Yet he treated me always with friendliness and often with deference, and now his voice was almost casual.
“Did he say where he was when he called up?”
“No.
At home, probably.”
“Don’t you know better than that, Miss Bell?” he inquired pointedly.
“If you don’t, let me tell you.
On that night Jim Blake dined early, and left the house at seven, or a few minutes after.
He did no telephoning before he left.