"They were all joining in friendly like, when all at once you could hear sort of daggers in the ladies' voices. Don't ask me what it was about. Talking of the concert, they were, as I said. Mrs. Lane only said that she thought she had heard more of the music than Miss Sibella, or something like that, when our young lady gets up, and says she isn't accustomed to have her word doubted, 'not even by Mrs. Seymour's late companion,' she says, with a nasty little laugh, and I could hardly get to the door in time, before she sailed through."
"Humph, and then?"
"The colonel, he looked—well, you know how a man feels when the women about him get to nagging each other—he looked just like that. And after a minute he said, 'I'm afraid poor Sibella's nerves are upset by this terrible affair.' Mrs. Lane she sits there, trying to keep the tears back, I thought, till she suddenly jumps up, and says low, but boiling over as it were, 'And so are mine!' And with that she leaves the colonel, too. The colonel he says, 'Good God! It's past bearing!' And then he went to his study."
Pointer filled in the gaps as he walked away. So Mrs. Lane and Sibella were not on the best of terms.
As he passed Red Gates he heard voices in the little arbour. Pushing open the gate, he caught sight of Thornton talking to Cockburn, who had come with Bond for the funeral.
"Look here! Should one, or should one not, tell all that one suspects in a case of this kind, as well as all that one knows? Terrible to bring suspicion on the wrong person." Cockburn's voice was hesitating.
"Worse to let the right person escape!" came from Bond, in the balcony above them.
"I like to be sure I'm right before I go ahead," murmured Cockburn doubtfully.
"And I like to be sure I'm wrong, before I stop," Bond retorted firmly.
"I think," Thornton's voice came thoughtfully, "I think I should feel it my duty to tell everything, even though it incriminated my nearest and dearest."
Pointer sincerely trusted that Mr. Thornton was speaking the truth. But he did not feel sure.
"You would, eh?" Cockburn seemed to have some difficulty in accepting the ruling.
"You're a thorough chap, Thornton. That's what I like about you," Bond said approvingly. But Cockburn seemed wrestling with doubts.
"That's easily said," he muttered around his pipe stem, "but take a man, an innocent man, as innocent as you, or I, of Miss Charteris's murder, and let him do something suspicious. I don't quite see—" His voice fell off.
Thornton repeated firmly that he would tell everything, and let the man clear himself.
"Excellently put, sir." Pointer stepped out into the tiny pergola. Thornton seemed to realise, that his emphasis-might have given away the topic, so he said lightly:
"Oh, I'm only quoting from a friend's play I'm reading."
"That's what the hero says, I suppose," Cockburn grumbled.
"Or perhaps what the villain says to throw others off the track," Pointer suggested suavely, looking at Thornton. Had he, or had he not, lent that car of his last Thursday night?
"Suppose it's just an onlooker's speech. Just a puzzled onlooker's," Thornton parried.
"Puzzled because what he knows won't square with what he hears?" Pointer asked.
The eyes of the two men met and locked.
"Look here, Co., we're in the way." Bond jumped up.
"Oh, I don't think that I'm going to be arrested yet." Thornton gave his sardonic smile. "Have a chair and a cigar, Chief Inspector?"
Pointer took the first, and produced his briar. "You were saying, Mr. Cockburn—"
"Oh, just fancies—generalities," Cockburn spoke a little shyly. "It's about last Thursday. I felt something was in the air down here at Stillwater, and I've just been wondering whether it could have anything to do with a story, I heard last night. There's a girl I know in town, who knows Bellairs jolly well. She thinks he means to marry, her. Perhaps he does."
"Perhaps he doesn't," Bond put in sceptically.
"She says, this girl I'm speaking of, that Bellairs saw quite a good deal of Miss Charteris lately. She's convinced that he was down here at his studio last Thursday night, though she has no proof. Of course, this may only be her jealous imaginings, but on Thursday, I thought—" Cockburn broke off vaguely.
"You thought?" Pointer prompted, after a little wait.
"Well, supposing, the colonel and di Monti had got wind of the same story? Di Monti played a single with Miss Charteris after tea, and I never saw such serves, nor such returns—to a girl. By Jove, he as good as tried to bang her with the ball more than once."
"Oh, come now!" Bond gave a laugh of sheer incredulity.
"Fact! Miss Scarlett, who was looking on, too, made some comment about his playing so hard, and he got himself in hand a bit after that. But the man was in a murderous temper. Absolutely murderous. And," Cockburn went on doggedly, "you, too, noticed the look on the colonel's face when we heard that shot on Thursday?"
He had turned again to Thornton, who nodded shortly "Well, there isn't any one who carries a revolver around here but the count. A Facistt is always armed, he told us once. I'm convinced that the colonel half-feared the truth then. And what about those blood-stained bits of cord we tried to match in the colonel's study when you caught us, Chief Inspector? It was the cord that the colonel had given di Monti, though we didn't know that then."
The four men sat awhile in silence.
"Is di Monti being watched?" Bond asked suddenly.
"My dear Bond, we're all being watched!" Thornton snapped out in a tone which suddenly charged the atmosphere with menace. Murder had been done. The murderer was still at large. Something grim and horrible showed its vague outline. The monstrous deed seemed to loom nearer.
Pointer shook his head.
"I'm sorry to bring you all down to humdrum earth, but don't think you have any idea how expensive the watching of three people would be. I'm afraid that only the possible criminal gets as far as that."
"Supposing there isn't a criminal?" Thornton said abruptly, and as always with him, Pointer had the impression that his speech had been looked over, inspected, before he allowed it out. "Suppose there has been no crime?" He was watching the chief inspector as he spoke.
"Suppose what, instead, then?" Pointer asked curiously.
"I hardly know—an accident, for instance, and some attempt to cover it up?"
Pointer had asked himself that question very seriously at first, but he had thought even then that the efforts to cover up all traces of the death having taken place at the summer house were too intense. Those steps along that short-cut, behind the dead girl's body, straightening her bier, while wearing her shoes! Would any woman do such a thing unless the need were of the most extreme urgency? Apart from everything else, he thought not. If either of the women were Mrs. Lane, or Sibella Scarlett, he was sure not. That it was one of them, the disarrangement of Rose Charteris's bed seemed to prove conclusively. Only these two, barring the servants, would have easy access to Rose's room, would think of the sketching box.
"That's an interesting theory," he said. "Could you enlarge on it at all, sir?"
No. Thornton said that he had no data, but that all along he had had a feeling that some most unfortunate combination of circumstances had made Miss Charteris's death look as though a crime had been committed, when possibly it was only a blunder.
"Bond and Co." seemed to find much food for thought in the novel theory. Pointer went off, saying that he must think it over. Perhaps Mr. Thornton would think it over, too, and let him know if anything bearing out his idea occurred to him.
He himself took up an inconspicuous position near Stillwater's front door. Lady Maxwell was the first to arrive for the funeral. She was shown into the drawing-room,