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‘Mr Mark Lester, is it?' asked Mitchell from the study where he had been listening to all this. ‘The young gentleman who is engaged to Miss Laing? Come in here for one moment, Mr Lester,' and beckoning Mark into the study he let loose on him such a flood of talk and of comment on the terrible nature of all such events, and on the invincible determination of the force he had the honour to represent to bring those guilty to justice, that Mark, at first quite dazed, began soon to show impatience and restlessness. But Mitchell's flood of talk flowed on, and Bobby would have wondered at it, too, had he not by now begun to understand that with Mitchell, not only did his brain work faster and clearer when his tongue was wagging unrestrainedly, but that he used the spate of words always at his command to distract the attention of others, to soothe their suspicions or doubts and to lull them into a sense of security.

‘Just so, just so,' Mark said, at last managing to get a word in, and at the same time edging towards the door. ‘I thought if I could see Miss Laing if she's still up...'

But Mitchell had him by the top button of his coat and now launched into a fresh exordium.

‘Exactly,' said Mark, very firmly indeed, and with a jerk freed himself from Mitchell's detaining finger and thumb.

But when he turned towards the door, Bobby was there, filling it so that none could pass, and Mitchell said:

‘So you see, Mr Lester, that's how it stands, and there's one point I would like you to clear up if you can, and that is, what brought you here at half past six this evening?'

‘But I've not been here before to-day at all,' Mark answered impatiently.

‘Not for a game of billiards with Sir Christopher?'

‘Certainly not,' Mark answered. ‘I've often had a game with him, of course, but not to-day.'

‘There is evidence you were seen about half past six this evening near the drawing-room window here!' Mitchell snapped, his thin, loquacious lips set and hard now, his eyes intent and fierce and dominating.

But Mark only shook his head and looked puzzled.

‘I've not been near here the whole day till now,' he asserted.

‘What have you been doing this evening?' Mitchell demanded.

‘I don't see why you want to know,' retorted Mark, a touch of excitement coming into his manner. ‘What are you asking for?'

‘A murder has been committed and I am an officer of police charged with the investigation,' Mitchell answered. ‘As such, I have a right to expect the help and assistance of every respectable law-abiding citizen.'

‘Oh, well,' Mark answered, his somewhat dramatic nature evidently impressed by this pronouncement – as Mitchell had meant he should be. ‘I left the City about five as usual – I'm with Baily and Leyland, the discount house. I got home some time before six and till dinner I was busy with a lecture I'm to give in a week or two on Chaucer. We had dinner at eight.'

‘We?'

‘My mother and I – I live with my mother. After dinner I left mother with her wireless and I went back to my work till mother came in to say Mrs Boyd, the vicar's wife, had rung up to ask if it were true that Sir Christopher Clarke had been found shot. So I came here at once to see what had really happened.'

‘Take you long?'

‘I suppose about forty minutes or so. I had to walk as it's so late. It only takes about ten minutes by tube.'

‘Ah, yes, I see,' murmured Mitchell, asking for Mark's address and making a note of it. ‘What room do you use as a study?'

‘It's the one that used to be the breakfast-room,' Mark answered, ‘but I don't see–'

‘No, no,' interrupted Mitchell, who did not specially wish that Mark should ‘see' as he called it. ‘On the ground floor, I suppose?'

‘It's on the right of the front door as you go in,' Mark explained.

‘Ah, yes, quite so,' murmured Mitchell, waving aside a point that was evidently for him quite without interest or importance. ‘Anyone come in to see you while you were working?'

‘I do not care to be interrupted,' Mark answered with simple dignity, ‘when I am at work.'

‘Very natural, too,' agreed Mitchell warmly. ‘No one came in then? But I wonder how it is that when you were working in your study at home, you were seen in the garden here?'

‘I wasn't,' said Mark. ‘Who told you such rot?'

Bobby from his place at the door said:

‘Miss Laing is coming downstairs, sir.'

‘Ask her to come in here,' Mitchell said.

Bobby went across to her accordingly; and she followed him back into the room, a tall, dark, tragic figure, with, for all her superb composure, a strained look about her that showed how much she was feeling the recent tragedy. Bobby even noticed a faint trembling of the muscles of her strong, white hand. But that was all; and as she stood there it was odd how, by the mere force of her personality and her silence, she seemed to dominate them all. The big, experienced Superintendent, with his air of resolve and concentration; tall, thin, intense-looking Mark Lester with his manner of being held back by bonds that might break at any moment; Bobby Owen in all the vigour of his splendid young manhood, alert and strong in mind and body, too; all three of them seemed somehow smaller in her presence. Mitchell said to her:

‘You know Mr Lester?'

She turned her grave and questioning eye from Mitchell to Mark and then back, and she bent slightly her stately head.

‘I understand you are engaged to be married?'

‘That is so,' she answered quietly, and then, looking at Mark, she added: ‘I knew you would come as soon as you heard.'

The young man flushed and gave her a quick look of gratitude and devotion. It was odd, Bobby thought, that this look appeared slightly to trouble her, as if it had awakened an emotion deeper than she had expected.

‘I think,' Mitchell continued, ‘you told the butler here that you saw Mr Lester in the garden, near the drawing-room window, about half past six? Is that so?'

‘I saw someone; I only had a glimpse,' she answered. ‘Was it you, Mark?'

‘No, I went straight home from the City and have been there ever since,' he answered.

‘Then it must have been someone else,' she answered tranquilly. ‘I did see someone; I am sure of that.' She paused and something like a faint smile fluttered for a moment at the corners of her mouth. ‘I suppose because I was thinking of Mr Lester, I thought it was him. I knew he wasn't coming to-night but I expect I hoped he might.' Again Mark looked at her with the same manner of devotion and of delight at her having had such a hope; and again Bobby thought that he could see she was for a passing moment a trifle surprised or even troubled by the emotion that he showed. It was almost as if his feeling for her surprised her, and yet they were an engaged couple, still presumably under the influence of the mutual passion and attraction that had brought them together.

Whether Mitchell also had noticed this Bobby was not sure, but it was quite plain that the Superintendent was a little disconcerted. It was perhaps not altogether surprising that a young girl, just engaged, should jump to the conclusion that any young man she had a glimpse of near the house was her lover coming to visit her – hope, expectation, longing, these soon produce a ‘wish-fantasy' easily taken for reality. All the same he was not satisfied. So he took refuge in his customary device of a flood of words that however dried up rather more quickly than usual under Brenda's calm and steady eyes.

Mark said:

‘Well, it wasn't me Miss Laing saw, but it looks as if that gave you something to go on. If it was the murderer, then you know it was someone about my size and build.'

‘Yes,' agreed Mitchell. ‘Was the person you saw,' he added to Brenda, ‘wearing a brown tweed lounge suit like this gentleman? Do you remember?'

‘I think he had on a dark coat and striped trousers,' Brenda answered. ‘You have a suit like that, Mark?'

‘Yes, but I put it aside to send to the cleaners two or three days ago,' Mark answered. ‘It's not gone yet.'

‘Interesting,' murmured Mitchell, and glancing at Bobby saw that he, too, was thinking of the morsel of striped trousering found outside the library window.

Only who was it who had left that behind him? And was it the murderer? And, if so, how had he been able to carry out a murder at one end of the house, a burglary at the other, and yet escape being seen except for this passing glimpse Miss Laing reported? Mitchell shook his head; it seemed impossible to him and yet he did not know what to make of it.

Mark turned abruptly to Brenda. It was a little as if something that had been holding him back had been suddenly slackened, so that for the moment he was freer, as if for the instant his real self was showing. He said with a kind of fierce, almost dramatic intensity:

‘Your father's murderer shan't go unpunished. If the police can't find who did it, by God in his Heaven, I will.' It was a sudden and unexpected outburst that startled them all.

‘I hope we shall succeed,' Mitchell said drily, ‘but if we fail, Mr Lester, you've taken a great oath there.'

‘Mark,' Brenda exclaimed, and for once even her superb tranquillity seemed troubled. ‘Mark, you should not have said that. Mark, what made you?'

Mark himself was looking a little surprised.

‘I don't know,' he muttered. ‘It came into my mind; it just came into my mind somehow and I had to say it.' Brenda turned and walked away and Mark followed her. Mitchell did not try to stop them, but he had a very worried air as he watched them cross the hall and disappear into the drawing-room where Peter Carsley and Jennie were still together, unaware till now, presumably, of Mark's arrival.

‘I've a feeling,' Mitchell said slowly, ‘that there's more in this case than in any I've ever handled – and a whole lot more than any of us has any idea of at present. If it wasn't that young fellow Miss Laing saw, who was it? Struck me she accepted his denial rather easily. Was that because she believed him at once – or because she didn't believe him at all? But then again, why should he want to murder the father – stepfather – of the girl he's going to marry. Though he does seem one of the high-strung, half-loony, artistic, literary type, that's always liable to go in off the deep end any time almost. Unstable as water, and ready to run in a flood like water any way you give 'em a tilt. Now, if Sir Christopher had objected to their engagement, same as you say he squashed that between Mr Carsley and the other girl – one could see a bit clearer. Bear looking into, though.'

‘Yes, sir,' agreed Bobby. ‘Here is Mr Carsley,' he added as the drawing-room door opened and Peter came out and walked quickly towards them.

Not without a certain emotion, for it seemed to them both it might be the solution of the mystery that was approaching them, the veteran Superintendent, the youthful constable, watched as Peter came quickly across the hall.

‘Good-looking enough for the pictures pretty near,' Mitchell muttered to himself, noting the classic regularity of the young man's features; ‘but all the same that mouth looks as if it would take a lot to stop it,' and indeed the look of almost fierce resolve stamped upon the young man's features, the firm lines about his mouth, something as it were of fire shining in his eyes, gave him an air like that he had worn when he had run almost the whole length of the field at Cardiff, clean through the opposing fifteen, to score at last for his side. ‘Made up his mind to something and nothing's going to stop him. Only what?'

‘It's the Carsley, sir,' Bobby said in his ear excitedly; ‘he played for the University when I was there – jolly good man, ought to have been capped for England.'

Mitchell nodded, and was about to follow his usual plan of launching into a long harangue on the subject of sport in general, and Rugby football in particular, when there came a fresh knock at the door. Bobby went to answer it, for by this time Lewis's slumber was profound. It proved to be the finger-print experts come back to examine the study. So that room had to be left to them, while the other three sat in the hall, and Peter, who had been waiting in a kind of heavy brooding silence, said to Mitchell:

‘There are some things I want to tell you. My name's Carsley, Peter Carsley. My firm's acted for Sir Christopher in legal affairs. Before I say anything else, I want to examine his safe. I believe it was found open. I have reason to believe it should contain a bundle of securities and bonds worth about twenty thousand pounds, mostly payable to bearer, all easily disposable of, and also diamonds worth a very large sum.'

‘Then,' said Mitchell with decision, ‘you may be pretty sure there's neither securities nor bonds nor diamonds there now. Only if there's been a burglary to that extent here, why was there murder at the other end of the house? How do you know all this, Mr Carsley?'

‘The securities form part of a trust – the Belfort Trust,' Peter answered. ‘There has been a change of trustees, owing to a death, and the new trustee, a Mr Belfort, is anxious to assure himself everything is in order. It was arranged he was to examine the papers here to-night. He was to dine here, and Sir Christopher was to go through the papers with him afterwards. It would be a long job, and Sir Christopher thought he could spare the time more easily here in the evening, than during the day in the City. Sir Christopher removed the securities from our care this afternoon – of course, we have his receipt – and he told Mr Marsden, my partner, that he would keep them all night and return them to-morrow.'

‘Did anyone else know of this arrangement?'

‘I suppose so,' answered Peter. ‘It wasn't a secret. Our staff would know, and some of Sir Christopher's very likely, and Mr Belfort himself, of course, and anyone he mentioned it to.'