with, “Well, she thinks you said Yorkshire,” before Mrs. Ratcliffe inevitably said, “How do you know?”
“There isn’t anything a police inspector doesn’t know,” he said.
“There isn’t anything he won’t do, you mean,” she said angrily. “Have you been walking out with Annie? I shouldn’t be surprised if you suspected me of having done the murder myself.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Grant. “Inspectors suspect all the world.”
“Well, I suppose I can only give thanks that your suspicions led to nothing worse than walking out my maid.”
Grant caught Miss Dinmont’s eyes on him under the short brim of her hat, and there was a new expression in them. The conversation had given away the fact that Mrs. Ratcliffe had some connexion with the queue murder, and Miss Dinmont was being given furiously to think. Grant smiled reassuringly at her. “They don’t think I’m nice to know,” he said. “But at least you can stick up for me. Justice is the thing I live for.” Surely she must see, if she thought about it, that his inquiries in this direction could not be very incriminating to Lamont. The chances must be the other way about.
“Let’s go and have tea,” Miss Lethbridge said. “Come along to our hotel. Or shall we go somewhere else, Meg? I’m sick of anchovy sandwiches and currant cake.”
Grant suggested a tea-shop which had a reputation for cakes, and began to bundle Mrs. Ratcliffe’s scattered belongings together. As he did so, he let the writing-pad drop so that it fell open on the sand, the first sheet exhibiting a half-written letter. Staring up at him in the bright sunlight were the round large letters of Mrs. Ratcliffe’s script. “Sorry!” he said, and restored the block to the pile of papers and magazines.
Tea as a gastronomic function might have been a success, but as a social occasion Grant felt that it failed miserably. Two out of his three companions regarded him with a distrust of which he could not fail to be conscious, and the third—Miss Lethbridge—was so cheerfully determined to pretend that she was not aware of her sister’s ill humour that she tacitly confessed her own awareness of tension. When they had taken leave of each other, and Grant and his companion were on their way to the station in the fading light, he said, “You’ve been a brick, Miss Dinmont. I’ll never forget it.” But she did not answer. She was so quiet on the way home that his already discontented thoughts were further distracted. Why couldn’t the girl trust him? Did she think him an ogre to make such unscrupulous use of her as she suspected. And all the time his looker-on half was smiling sardonically and saying, “You, a police inspector, asking for trust! Why, Machiavelli was fastidious compared with a C.I.D. man.”
When Grant was at war with himself his mouth had a slight twist in it, and tonight the twist was very marked. He had found not one definite answer to the problems that troubled him. He did not know whether Mrs. Ratcliffe had recognized the brooch or not. He did not know whether she had said New York to her maid or not. And though he had seen her writing, that helped to no conclusion; a large percentage of women wrote large and very round hands. Her pause at sight of the brooch might have been merely the pause while she read the twined initial. Her veiled questions as to its origin might have been entirely innocent. On the other hand, they most emphatically might not. If she had anything to do with the murder, it must be recognized that she was clever and not likely to give herself away. She had already fooled him once when he dismissed her so lightly from his mind on the first day of the investigations. There was nothing to prevent her from going on fooling him unless he found a damning fact that could not be explained away.
“What do you think of Mrs. Ratcliffe?” he asked Miss Dinmont. They were alone in the compartment except for a country yokel and his girl.
“Why?” she asked. “Is this merely making conversation, or is it more investigation?”
“I say, Miss Dinmont, are you sore with me?”
“I don’t think that is the correct expression for what I feel,” she said. “It isn’t often I feel a fool, but I do tonight.” And he was dismayed at the bitterness in her voice.
“But there’s not the slightest need,” he said, genuinely distressed. “You did the job like a professional, and there was nothing in it to make you feel like that. I’m up against something I don’t understand, and I wanted you to help me. That’s all. That’s why I asked you about Mrs. Ratcliffe just now. I want a woman’s opinion to help me—an unbiased woman’s opinion.”
“Well, if you want my candid opinion, I think the woman is a fool.”
“Oh? You don’t think she’s clever, deep down?”
“I don’t think she has a deep down.”
“You think she’s just shallow? But surely—” He considered.
“Well, you asked me what I thought, and I’ve told you. I think she’s a shallow fool.”
“And her sister?” Grant asked, though that had nothing to do with the investigations.
“Oh, she is different. She has any amount of brain and personality, though you mightn’t think so.”
“Would you say that Mrs. Ratcliffe would commit a murder?”
“No, certainly not!”
“Why not?”
“Because she hasn’t got the guts,” said Miss Dinmont elegantly. “She might do the thing in a fit of temper, but all the world would know it the next minute, and ever afterwards as long as she lived.”
“Do you think she might know about one and keep the knowledge to herself?”
“You mean the knowledge of who was guilty?”
“Yes.”
Miss Dinmont sat looking searchingly at the inspector’s impassive face. The lights of station lamps moved slowly over and past it as the train slid to a halt. “Eridge! Eridge!” called the porter, clumping down the deserted platform. The unexpectant voice had died into the distance, and the train had gathered itself into motion again before she spoke.
“I wish I could read what you are thinking,” she said desperately. “Am I being your fool for the second time in one day?”
“Miss Dinmont, believe me, so far I have never known you do a foolish thing, and I’m willing to take a large bet I never shall.”
“That might do for Mrs. Ratcliffe,” she said. “But I’ll tell you. I think she might keep quiet about a murder, but there would have to be a reason that mattered to herself overwhelmingly. That’s all.”
He was not sure whether the last two words meant that that was all that she could tell him, or whether it was an indication that pumping was to cease; but she had given him food for thought, and he was quiet until they ran into Victoria. “Where are you living?” he asked. “Not at the hospital?”
“No; I’m staying at my club in Cavendish Square.”
He accompanied her there against her wish, and said good night on the doorstep, since she would not be persuaded to dine with him.
“You have some days of holiday yet,” he said, with kindly intention. “How are you going to fill them in?”
