“No, no,” said Sir Charles.
“Left and right are always puzzling.”
He said good-bye for the third time.
As he closed the door he looked back.
Miss Wills was not looking at him.
She was standing where he had left her. She was gazing at the fire, and on her lips was a smile of satisfied malice.
Sir Charles was startled. “That woman knows something,” he said to himself. “I’ll swear she knows something. And she won’t say ... But what the devil is it she knows?”
22
At the office of Messrs. Speier & Ross, Mr. Satterthwaite asked for Mr. Oliver Manders and sent in his card.
Presently he was ushered into a small room, where Oliver was sitting at a writing-table.
The young man got up and shook hands.
“Good of you to look me up, sir,” he said. His tone implied.
“I have to say that, but really it’s a damned bore.”
Mr. Satterthwaite, however, was not easily put off.
He sat down, blew his nose thoughtfully, and, peering over the top of his handkerchief, said:
“Seen the news this morning?”
“You mean the new financial situation?
Well, the dollar - ”
“Not dollars,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “Death. The result of the Loomouth exhumation.
Babbington was poisoned - by nicotine.”
“Oh, that - yes, I saw that.
Our energetic Egg will be pleased.
She always insisted it was murder.”
“But it doesn’t interest you?”
“My tastes aren’t so crude.
After all, murder -” he shrugged his shoulders. “So violent and inartistic.”
“Not always inartistic,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
“No?
Well, perhaps not.”
“It depends, does it not, on who commits the murder.
You, for instance, would, I am sure, commit a murder in a very artistic manner.”
“Nice of you to say so,” drawled Oliver.
“But frankly, my dear boy, I don’t think much of the accident you faked.
No more do the police, I understand.”
There was a moment’s silence - then a pen dropped to the floor.
Oliver said: “Excuse me, I don’t quite understand you.”
“That rather inartistic performance of yours at Melfort Abbey.
I should be interested to know - just why you did it.”
There was another silence, then Oliver said:
“You say the police - suspect?”
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded.
“It looks a little suspicious, don’t you think?” he asked pleasantly.
“But perhaps you have a perfectly good explanation.”
“I’ve got an explanation,” said Oliver slowly. “Whether it’s a good one or not, I don’t know.”
“Will you let me judge?”
There was a pause, then Oliver said:
“I came here - the way I did - at Sir Bartholomew’s own suggestion.”
“What?” Mr. Satterthwaite was astonished.
“A bit odd, isn’t it?
But it’s true.