Sally gave a gasp. "Go on! It's the rankest kind of boloney, but I should be interested to know how you defend it."
"Shouldn't place people under obligations," said Neville briefly. "Nearly always intolerable. Effect on your own character probably disastrous."
"Why?"
"Spiritual conceit."
She polished her monocle. "There's something in what you say," she admitted. "Not much, but a grain of truth. Sorry I tried to butt in on your plans for Miss Fletcher's consolation. I very nearly took a hand in Helen's differences with John, too. A small, inner voice bade me hold my peace."
"A woman's instinct!" said Neville, deeply moved. "Not but what I sympathise with your purely rational desire to disperse the fog they grope in. But one should never forget that some people fair revel in fog."
"Helen isn't revelling in any of this," Sally replied. "Married couples who can't get on rather bore me in the ordinary way, but though I think she's been cavorting around like a prize ass my withers are a trifle wrung by Helen's troubles. They really do seem to have gathered thick and fast upon her. The worst of it is, I can't be sure which way John will jump if he discovers the truth."
"Baffling man -John," agreed Neville.
"Well, he is. Just consider it! He arrives in England, unexpectedly, the day Ernie is murdered, and turns up here the next morning, suspecting that the footprints discovered in the garden might be Helen's."
"Oh no, did he really? That leads us to suppose that he knew something."
"Yes, but what? Helen says he doesn't suspect her of having had any kind of liaison with Ernie. But when he walked in on us yesterday the general impression I got was that an iceberg had drifted in. In fact, he was coldly angry, and not loving any of us very noticeably."
"Forgive the interruption, but if he thought Helen was mixed up in a murder case, there was a certain amount of excuse for peevishness. I don't want to be old-world, but wife's admitted presence in home of noted lady-killer is enough to make most men feel a trifle out of humour."
"I know, and if he'd raged at her I could have understood it. He was just deadly polite."
"Obviously the moment for Helen to put over a big act as repentant wife."
"That what I hope she is doing, but she's so burned up over the whole thing that she seems to have lost grip. Of course, if John were to say: "Darling, tell me all," I expect she would. But he isn't that sort. They must have let themselves drift an awful way apart."
The same thought was in Helen's mind at that moment. She had just entered the library, where her husband sat writing at his desk, and almost before she closed the door behind her she wished that she were on the other side of it.
North looked up, regarding her in a way which did not tend to put her any more at her ease. "Do you want me, Helen?" he asked impersonally.
"I - No, not exactly. Are you busy?"
He laid down his pen. "Not if you wish to talk to me."
This reply, though possibly intended to be encouraging, had the effect of making Helen feel a very long way away from him. She moved across the room to a chair by the window, and sat down in it. "It's such a long time since we talked together - really talked - that I seem to have forgotten how," she said, trying to speak lightly.
His face hardened. "Yes."
She realised that hers had been an unfortunate remark. She said, not looking at him: "We - we ought to talk this thing over, don't you think? It concerns us both, doesn't it?"
"Certainly. What do you want to say?"
She tried to formulate sentences in her brain; he neither moved nor spoke, but sat watching her. Suddenly she raised her eyes, and said abruptly: "Why did you come home like that? So unexpectedly, and without a word to me?"
"I thought, Helen, that you already knew the answer to that question."
"I? How could I know?"
"You informed me that you did. You said that I had come home to spy on you."
She flushed. "I didn't mean it. I was upset."
"That you were upset by my arrival is not, my dear Helen, a very reassuring thought."
"Not that! Ernie's death - that policeman asking me such ghastly questions!"
"We should get on better," he remarked, "if you did not lie to me. I know you rather well. You were horrified to see me."
She looked rather hopelessly across at him. "Oh, what's the use of talking like this? It only leads to misunderstandings, and bitterness."
After a moment's silence, he answered levelly: "Very well. What did you want to talk to me about? Fletcher's murder?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"It seems to be very much on your nerves."
"Wouldn't it be on yours?"
"That would depend on whether I felt either grief, or fear."
"Grief ! Oh no! But I was there that evening. I don't want to be dragged into it. You must see how awful my position is!"
"Had you not better tell me exactly what happened?" he suggested.
"I did tell you. I think I've made the Superintendent realise that it would be no use asking me to identify the man I saw, but -'
Just a moment, Helen. It is time we understood one another. Did you,, in fact, recognise that man?"
"No!" she said quickly. "I never saw his face."
"But you have some idea, haven't you, who he was?"
She said in a low voice: "If I had I shouldn't tell a soul. You can be sure of that."
"In that case, there does not seem to be much point in pursuing the matter further," he said. "The only advice I can possibly give you, as things are, is to keep calm, and to say as little as you can." He picked up his pen again, but after writing a couple of lines, said, without looking up: "By the way, have you any objection to telling me why Neville Fletcher came to see you on the night of the murder?"
She gave an uncontrollable start, and faltered: "How do you know? Who told you?"
"Baker saw him leave the premises, and mentioned it to me this morning."
"Do you encourage the servants to report to you who visits me?"
"No," he replied imperturbably.
"Neville came to tell me Ernie had been killed." He looked up at that. "Indeed! Why?"
"He knew I was a friend of Ernie's. I suppose he thought I'd want to know. He's always doing mad things.
You simply can't account for anything he says or does."
"What does he know about this business?"
"Nothing. Only what we all know."
"Then why did he think it necessary to visit you at midnight to tell you what you would certainly know a few hours later?"
"He'd seen my footprints," she said desperately. "He thought they might be mine. He came to find out."
"If Neville leapt to the conclusion that the footprints were yours he must enjoy a greater share of your confidence than I suspected. What is there between you?"
She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. "Oh, my God, what do you take me for? Neville! It's - it's almost laughable!"
"You misunderstand me. I wasn't suggesting that there was any love between you. But your explanation of his visit is altogether too lame to be believed. Did he by any chance know that you were at Greystones that evening?"
"No, of course not! How could he? It was a guess, that's all."
"Not even Neville Fletcher would make such a guess without having very good reason for doing so. Am I to understand that you were so much in the habit of visiting Fletcher in that - you will have to forgive me if I call it clandestine - manner, that it was a natural conclusion for Neville to arrive at?"
"Oh no! Neville knew all the time that I didn't feel about Ernie except as a friend."
He raised his brows. "Was your possible relationship with Fletcher of interest to Neville?"