never saw anything in it myself.’
Fisher smiled inwardly. It was not for nothing that he had wished to see this lady in Mr Barley’s absence.
‘Too absurd to suggest it,’ he said. ‘With a big thing like that in view, there would be a lot to discuss and talk over?’
‘Miss Gurdon used to visit their house, with her maps and plans,’ she agreed. ‘I can assure you it was quite above-board. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘It seems hardly worth discussing,’ he said casually. ‘But let us leave that, and come back to Mr Tollard. He only left here yesterday. I presume you knew he was leaving?’
She reflected. ‘No. That was rather a surprise. We were all going to picnic at Heber Castle, in the afternoon, and he had driven his wife over to Elterham to get some books in the morning. I saw them come back in the car, but did not speak to them. It was later we heard he had to go back to town on business.’
‘I hope the drive did her good—I mean to say, how did she seem when you saw her?’
Netta Gailey gave a sudden start. Was it possible that this horrid man was pumping her? Had she said too much already?
‘Oh, all right,’ she said hastily.
Fisher had been watching her face. ‘Do you mean happy?’
She squirmed a little, and he saw that too. He came at her suddenly with a verbal thrust.
‘You thought not? You felt that she was not quite at her ease?’
Netta gasped. ‘Oh, I don’t know. She seemed a bit upset, perhaps, but she had a bad head later, and perhaps she felt it coming on.’
It had dawned on her that her conjecture was right. He had been drawing her on. She rose, much perturbed.
He got up, and rang a bell. ‘Please sit down for a few moments,’ he said, and began to scribble in his note-book as she resumed her seat.
Grover, the butler, came in. Fisher asked him to send in Miss Sayers, and went on writing. Miss Sayers appeared in a minute, and glanced woefully at Netta. The superintendent suddenly seemed to jump up, and be standing between them.
‘Thank you, Mrs Gailey, that will do,’ he said.
Netta went out, without a chance to warn her friend. Fisher courteously asked Nelly Sayers to sit, and stood near her, his hands behind his back.
‘I am sorry to trouble you, Miss Sayers,’ he began, ‘but duty is duty even when it is not very pleasant. Mrs Gailey tells me that Mrs Tollard returned yesterday from a drive with her husband, looking rather upset. Between you and me, I am not disposed to lay much stress on Mr Tollard’s connection with this expedition, but I get the impression that Mrs Tollard, perhaps, did not quite like her husband’s interest in it.’
Nelly Sayers was not vivacious, and quick, but she had at the back of her more common-sense than her friend Netta. The trouble was that she did not know what the latter had told the officer.
‘I think it’s rubbish,’ she cried. ‘She had nothing to complain of.’
‘Unfortunately, people do not require to have grounds for complaint,’ he said shrewdly. ‘Did you see her return from this drive?’
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