"No. No, of course not. But I've known Neville for years." Her voice tailed off uncertainly.
"I am quite aware of that. I too have known Neville - or shall we say, have been acquainted with him? - for years. Are you asking me to believe that that extremely detached young man asked you to explain your dealings with his uncle?"
She could not help smiling, but there was fright in her eyes. "No. Actually, I told him."
"You told Neville Fletcher… I see. Why?"
She muttered: "No reason. It - sort of came out. I can't explain."
"That at least is evident," he said harshly.
"You don't believe anything I say."
"Do you find that surprising?"
She was silent, staring down at her clasped hands.
"Is Neville in love with you?"
She said, with genuine surprise: 'Neville? Oh no, I'm sure he's not!"
"You must forgive me for being so ignorant," he said. "So little have I spied on you that I'm not at all up to date. Who, at the moment, is an enamoured swain? Is Jerry Maitland still in the running?"
"If I told you no one had ever been in the running you'd- believe that as little as you believe the rest of my story."
"As I have yet to hear the rest of your story, I can't answer that. Oh, don't insult my intelligence by telling me that I have heard it!"
Her lips were trembling. "If you think that, is this the way to get me to tell you the whole truth? You treat me as though I were - as though I were a criminal, and not your wife!"
"My wife!" He gave a short laugh. "Is not that a trifle farcical?"
"If it is, it's your fault!" she said in a choking voice.
"Oh, undoubtedly! I failed to satisfy you, didn't I? You wanted more excitement than was to be found in marriage with me, and one man's love was not enough for you. Tell me this, Helen; would you have married me if I had not been a rich man?"
She made a gesture, as though thrusting his words away from her, and rose jerkily to her feet, and stood with her back to him, staring out of the window. After a moment she said in a constricted tone: "If they don't arrest me for Ernie's murder, you had better divorce me."
"They won't arrest you. You needn't let that bugbear ride you."
"Things look very black against me," she said wearily. "I don't know that I care much."
"If things look black, you've kept something from me which must be of vital importance. Are you going to tell me what it is?"
She shook her head. "No. When the case is over - if we come out of it intact - I'll make it possible for you to divorce me."
"I'm not going to divorce you. Unless -'He stopped.
"Well? Unless?"
"Unless there's someone else whom you've fallen in love with enough to - But I don't believe there is. You don't fall in love, Helen. All you want is a series of flirtations. But if I am to help you now -'
"Why should you?" she interrupted.
"Because you're my wife."
"The whole duty of a husband, in fact. Thank you, but I would prefer you to keep out of it."
"I can't do that."
"You were a fool to come down here!" she said.
"Possibly, but if you were to be dragged into the case there was nothing to be done."
She turned. "To save your own good name? Do you hate me, John?"
"No."
"You're indifferent, in fact. We're both indifferent." She came away from the window. "I don't want to be divorced. I realise that all this mess - Ernie's death, the scandal, everything! - has been my fault, and I'm sorry. In future, I'll be more careful. There really isn't anything more to be said, is there?"
"If you don't trust me enough to tell me the whole truth, nothing."
"I trust you as much as you trust me!" she said fiercely. "You know how much that is! Now, if you please, let's banish the whole subject. Do you mean to come home to dinner tonight?"
He was looking rather narrowly at her, and did not answer. She repeated the question; he replied in his usual cold way: "No, I shall dine in town. I may be late back. Expect me when you see me."
Chapter Nine
Sergeant Hemingway left Greystones in a thoughtful mood. An exhaustive search had failed to discover the hiding-place of any weapon, but one fact had emerged with which he seemed to be rather pleased.
"Though why I should be I can't tell you," he said to Glass. "It makes the whole business look more screwy than ever. But in my experience that's very often the way. You start on a case which looks as though it's going to be child's play, and you don't seem to get any further with it. By the time you've been at work on it a couple of days you've collected enough evidence to prove that there couldn't have been a murder at all. Then something breaks, and there you are."
"Do you say that the more difficult a case becomes the easier it is to solve?" asked Glass painstakingly.
"That's about the size of it," admitted the Sergeant. "When it's got so gummed up that each new fact you pick up contradicts the last I begin to feel cheerful."
"I do not understand. I see around me only folly and sin and vanity. Shall these things make a righteous man glad?"
"Not being a righteous man, I can't say. Speaking as a humble flatfoot, if it weren't for folly and sin and vanity I wouldn't be where I am now, and nor would you, my lad. And if you'd stop wasting your time learning bits of the Bible to fire off at me - which in itself is highly insubordinate conduct, let me tell you - and take a bit of wholesome interest in this problem, you'd probably do yourself a lot of good. You might even get promoted."
"I set no store by worldly honours," said Glass gloomily. "Man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish."
"What you do want," declared the Sergeant with asperity, "is a course of Bile Beans! I've met some killjoys in my time, but you fairly take the cake. What did you get out of your friend the butler?"
"He knows nothing."
"Don't you believe it! Butlers always know something."
"It is not so. He knows only that harsh words passed between the dead man and his nephew on the evening of the murder."
"Young Neville explained that," said the Sergeant musingly. "Not that I set much store by what he says. Pack of lies, I daresay."
"A lying tongue is but for the moment," observed Glass, with melancholy satisfaction.
"You can't have been about the world much if that's what you think. Do you still hold to it that the man you saw on the night of the murder wasn't carrying anything?"
"You would have me change my evidence," said Glass, fixing him with an accusing glare, "but I tell you that a man that beareth false witness is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow!"
"No one wants you to bear false witness," said the Sergeant irritably. "And as far as I'm concerned, you're a sharp arrow already, and probably a maul as well, if a maul means what I think it does. I've had to tell you off once already for giving me lip, and I've had about enough of it. Wait a bit!" He stopped short in the middle of the pavement and pulled out his notebook, and hastily thumbed over the leaves. "You wait!" he said darkly. "I've got something here that I copied out specially. I knew it would come in useful. Yes, here we are! He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed." He looked up to see how this counter-blast was being received, and added with profound satisfaction: "And that without remedy!"
Glass compressed his lips, but said after a moment's inward struggle: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. I will declare my iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin."
"All right," said the Sergeant, returning his notebook to his pocket. "We'll carry on from there."
A heavy sigh broke from Glass. "Mine iniquities have gone over my head; as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me," he said in a brooding tone.