“Not a police court, perhaps,” he admitted; “but wait till you see a big trial.”
“I hope I never shall—but it seems that I’m going to. You have a beautiful case, haven’t you?”
“That is the word my chief uses about it.”
“And don’t you agree?” she asked quickly.
“Oh, yes, certainly.” To admit to Mrs. Everett that he was not satisfied was one thing, but he was not going to blazon it abroad. And this independent girl was certainly “abroad.”
Presently she mentioned Lamont directly. “He looks bad,” she said judicially, using “bad” in her professional sense. “Will they look after him in prison?”
“Oh, yes,” said Grant; “they take very good care of them.”
“Is there any chance of their badgering him? Because I warn you he won’t stand any badgering as he is now. Either he’ll be seriously ill or he’ll say that he did it.”
“Then you don’t believe he did?”
“I think it’s unlikely, but I’m quite aware that the fact that I think so doesn’t make it so. I just want him to get a fair deal.”
Grant remarked on her matter-of-fact acceptance of his word at Carninnish as to the man’s guilt.
“Well,” she said, “you knew much more about it than I did. I never saw him till three days previously. I liked him—but that didn’t make him guilty or innocent. Besides, I’d rather be a brute than a fool.”
Grant considered this unfeminine pronouncement in silence, and she repeated her question.
“Oh, no,” Grant said; “this isn’t America. And in any case, he has made his statement, as you heard, and he is not likely to change his mind or make another.”
“Has he any friends?”
“Only your aunt, Mrs. Everett.”
“And who will pay for his defence?”
Grant explained.
“Then he can’t have any of the good ones. That doesn’t seem to me particularly fair—for the law to keep famous lawyers to do their prosecuting and not famous lawyers to defend poor criminals.”
Grant grinned. “Oh, he’ll have a fair deal, don’t you worry. It is the police who are harried round in a murder case.”
“Did you never, in all your experience, know a case where the law made a mistake?”
“Yes, several,” Grant admitted cheerfully. “But they were all cases of mistaken identity. And that’s not in question here.”
“No; but there must be cases where the evidence is nothing but a lot of things that have nothing to do with each other put together until they look like something. Like a patchwork bedcover.”
She was getting too “hot” to be comfortable in her search after enlightenment, and Grant reassured her and unostentatiously changed the subject—and presently fell silent; a sudden idea had occurred to him. If he went down to Eastbourne alone, Mrs. Ratcliffe, however casual his appearance, might be suspicious of his bona fides. But if he appeared with a woman companion he would be accepted at once as off duty, and any suspicion his presence might arouse would be lulled until he could get Mrs. Ratcliffe completely off her guard. And the whole success of the expedition depended on that—that she should be unprepared for any demonstration on his part.
“Look here,” he said, “are you doing anything this afternoon?”
“No; why?”
“Have you done your good deed for the day?”
“No, I think I’ve been entirely selfish today.”
“Well, get it off your chest by coming down to Eastbourne with me this afternoon as my cousin, and being my cousin till dinner. Will you?”
She considered him gravely. “I don’t think so. Are you on the track of some other unhappy person?”
“Not exactly. I’m on the track of something, I think.”
“I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “If it were just fun, I’d do it like a shot. But when it means something I don’t know for some one I’ve never met—you see?”
“I say, I can’t tell you about it, but if I give you my word that you’ll never regret it, will you believe me and come?”
“But why should I believe you?” she said sweetly.
The inspector was rather staggered. He had commended her lack of faith in Lamont, but her logical application of it to himself disconcerted him.
“I don’t know why,” he admitted. “I suppose police officers are just as capable of fibbing as any one.”
“And considerably more unscrupulous than most,” she added dryly.
“Well, it’s just a matter for your own decision, then. You won’t regret coming. I’ll swear to that, if you like—and police officers are not given to perjury, however unscrupulous they may be.”
She laughed. “That got you, didn’t it?” she said delightedly. And after a pause, “Yes, I’ll come and be your cousin with pleasure. None of my cousins are half as good-looking.” But the mockery in her tone was too apparent for Grant to find much pleasure in the compliment.
They went down through the green countryside to the sea, however, in perfect amity, and when Grant looked up suddenly and saw the downs he was surprised. There they stood in possession of the landscape, like some one who has tiptoed into a room unheard, and startles the occupant by appearing in the middle of the floor. He had never known a journey to the south coast pass so quickly. They were alone in the compartment, and he proceeded to give her her bearings.
“I am staying down at Eastbourne—no, I can’t be, I’m not dressed for the part—we’ve both come down for the afternoon, then. I am going to get into conversation with two women who know me already in my professional capacity. When the talk turns on hat brooches I want you to produce this from your bag, and say that you have just bought it for your sister. Your name, by the way, is Eleanor Raymond, and your sister’s is Mary. That is all. Just leave the brooch lying round until I arrange my tie. That will be the signal that I have had all I want.”
“All right. What is your first name, by the way?”
“Alan.”
“All right, Alan. I nearly forgot to ask you that. It would have been a joke if I had not known my cousin’s name! . . . It’s a queer world, isn’t it? Look at those primroses in the sun and think of all the people in terrible trouble this minute.”
“No, don’t. That way madness lies. Think of the pleasantly deserted beach we’re going to see in a few minutes.”
“Do you ever go to the Old Vic?” she asked, and they were still telling each other how wonderful Miss Baylis was when they ran into the station; and Grant said, “Come on, Eleanor,” and, grabbing her by the arm, picked her from the carriage like a small boy, impatient to try a spade on the sands.
The beach, as Grant had prophesied, was in that pleasantly deserted condition that makes the south-coast resorts so attractive out of the season. It was sunny and very warm, and a few groups lay about on the shingle, basking in the sun in an aristocratic isolation unknown to summer visitors.
“We’ll go along the front and come back along the beach,” Grant said. “They are bound to be out on a day like this.”
“Heaven send they aren’t on the downs,” she said. “I