"If that is so, the matter is simple," said Glass. "There is a pillar-box at the corner of Vale Avenue and Glynne Road, where she dwells, which is cleared at 10.00 p.m. each night. I do not doubt that the postman saw her, if she was indeed upon her way home at that hour."
"Nice work, Ichabod!" exclaimed the Sergeant. "You'll end up in the CID yet."
A cold eye was turned upon him. "A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet," said Glass, adding, since the Sergeant seemed unimpressed: "Even the eyes of his child shall fail."
"Well, don't sound so cocky about it," said the Sergeant. "And as it happens I haven't got any children, so now where are you?"
"We won't discuss the matter," interposed Hannasyde in a chilling tone. "You will please remember, Glass, that you are talking to your superior officer."
"To have respect of persons is not good," said Glass seriously. "For, for a piece of bread that man will transgress."
"Oh, will he?" said the indignant Sergeant. "Well, he won't - not for fifty pieces of bread! What next!"
"That'll do," said Hannasyde, a tremor in his voice. "Get hold of that postman, Glass, and discover at what time he cleared the box, whether he saw Mrs. North, and if so, whether she was carrying anything. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, that's all. Report here to me."
Glass withdrew. As the door closed behind him,
Hannasyde said: "Why do you encourage him, Skipper?"
"Me? Me encourage him?"
"Yes, you."
The Sergeant said: "Well, if you call it encouraging him to tell him where he gets off-'
"I believe you enjoy him," said Hannasyde accusingly. The Sergeant grinned. "Well, I've got to admit it adds a bit of interest to the case, waiting for him to run dry. You'd think he must have got pretty well all he's learnt off his chest by now, wouldn't you? He hasn't, though. I certainly have to hand it to him: he hasn't repeated himself once so far. Where do we go from here?"
"To North's house," replied Hannasyde. "I must see if I can get out of him what he was doing on the night of the murder. You, I think, might put in a little good work in the servants' hall."
But when he arrived at the Chestnuts Hannasyde was met by the intelligence that North had left the house immediately after lunch. The butler was unable to state his master's destination, but did not think, since he was driving himself in his touring car, that he was bound for his City office.
After a moment's consideration, Hannasyde asked to have his card taken to Mrs. North. The butler accepted it, remarking repressively that he would see whether it were convenient for his mistress to receive him, and ushered him into the library.
Here he was presently joined by Miss Drew, who came in with her monocle screwed firmly into her eye, and a cigarette stuck into a long amber holder. "My sister's resting, but she'll be down in a moment," she informed him. "What do you want to see her about?"
"I'll tell her, when she comes," he replied politely.
She grinned. "All right: I can take a snub. But if it's about that epic story Neville Fletcher burbled into your Sergeant's ears, I can tell you now you're wasting your time. It leads nowhere."
"Epic story? Oh, you mean his adventures on the night of his uncle's death! No, I haven't come about that."
"I quite thought you might have. I shouldn't have been altogether surprised had you asked to see me."
"No? Are you concerned in those adventures?"
"Actually, I'm not, but Neville, who, you may have noticed, is rather reptilian, told the Sergeant, in his artless way, that I had plans for opening Ernie Fletcher's safe."
"And had you?"
"Well, yes and no," said Sally guardedly. "If I'd had my criminal notebook with me, and time to think it out, I believe I could have had a stab at it. But one very valuable thing this case has taught me is that in real life one just doesn't have time. Of course, if I'd been writing this story, I should have thought up a perfectly plausible reason for the fictitious me to have had the means at hand of concocting the stuff you call soup. I should have turned myself into a scientist's assistant, with the run of his laboratory, or something like that. However, I'm nothing of the sort, so that wasn't much good."
Hannasyde looked at her with a good deal of interest. "Mr. Fletcher's story was true, then, and not an attempt to keep the police amused?"
"You seem to have weighed him up pretty accurately," commented Sally. "But, as it happens, he really did come here to tell Helen (a) that his uncle had been murdered, and (b) that he hadn't managed to get hold of her IOUs. That, naturally, looked very bad to me. Of course, it was idiotic of my sister to co-opt Neville in the first place: she'd have done better to have put me on to it. You won't misunderstand me when I tell you that I was all for abstracting those IOUs from the safe before you could get your hands on them. Unfortunately, there was a policeman mounting guard over the study, which completely cramped my style."
"I quite see your point," said Hannasyde. "But if you've made a study of crime you must know that it would have been quite culpable of you to have abstracted anything at all from the murdered man's safe."
"Theoretically, yes; in practice, no," responded Sally coolly. "I knew that the IOUs had nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Naturally you can't be expected to know that, and just look at the trouble they're causing you! Not to mention the waste of time."
"I appreciate your point of view, Miss Drew, but, as you have already realised, I don't share it. It seems to me that the IOUs may have a very direct bearing on the case."
She gave a chuckle. "Yes, wouldn't you love me to pour my girlish confidences into your ears? It's all right: I'm going to. If you're toying with the notion that my sister may have been the murderess, I can put you right straight away. Setting aside the fairly evident fact that she simply hasn't got it in her to smash anyone's head in, there wasn't a trace of blood on her frock or her cloak when she came home that night. If you want me to believe that she could have done the deed, and not got one drop of blood on her, you'll have to hypnotise me. Of course, I don't expect you to pay much heed to what I say, because I'm bound to stand by my sister, but you can interrogate her personal maid, can't you? She'll tell you that none of my sister's clothes have disappeared, or have been sent to the cleaners' during the past week." She paused, extracted the end of her cigarette from the holder, and stubbed it out. "But, as I see it, you don't really think she did it. The man you suspect is my brother-in-law, and I'm sure I don't blame you. Only there again I may be able to help you. You can take it from me that he doesn't know of the existence of those IOUs. I've no doubt that sounds a trifle fatuous to you, but it happens to be true. And -just in case you haven't grasped this one - he doesn't suspect my sister of having had any what-you-might-call improper dealings with Ernest Fletcher." She stopped, and looked critically at him. "I'm not making a hit with you at all. Why not? Don't you believe me?"
"Yes, I believe you're telling me whatyou believe to be the truth," he answered. "But it is just possible that you don't know the whole truth. If - for the sake of argument - your brother-in-law is the man I'm looking for, it must be obvious to you that he wouldn't give anything away, even to you."
"That's perfectly true," conceded Sally fair-mindedly. "But there's one other point: my brother-in-law's no fool. If he'd done it, he'd have taken darned good care to have covered up his tracks." She frowned suddenly, and began to fit another cigarette into her holder. "Yes, I see there's a snag there. You think that he meant to, but that Helen's getting mixed up in it gummed up the works. You may be right, but if I were you I wouldn't bank on it."