Mr. Robinson sustained both the look and its withdrawal with cheerful calm. He went on looking at Peveril, and appeared to be seeking for some quotation which would describe him in suitable terms. He was, as a matter of fact, hesitating between one which might be considered offensive and a milder one which he felt to be inadequate, when the door opened and the two Miss Tremletts, Thomasina Elliot, Augustus Remington, and Miranda trooped in, shepherded by Inspector Jackson. There were greetings. There were a great many questions. The Miss Tremletts were agitated. Miranda, her red head topping the others, frowning and silent. Augustus Remington voluble in protest.
“My morning’s work will be ruined! I had an idea-very slight, very tenuous, quite terribly elusive.”
He addressed himself to Gwyneth Tremlett.
“Inspired by the exquisite shade of silk I purchased yesterday -treasure trove, my dear, pure treasure trove, but fragile as the bloom on a butterfly’s wing. But you will understand me-at this stage a touch, a breath, a current of cold unsympathetic thought, and the nascent idea is bruised, is blighted, is carried away. I hope it will not prove so in this case, but I am quite terribly afraid.”
He continued his lamentation whilst Mrs. Craddock and Miss Silver were summoned. With his straw-coloured hair distractedly ruffled and in workaday garments consisting of brown velvet trousers and a grass-green smock, Thomasina thought he looked a good deal like a grasshopper-if you could imagine a grasshopper with straw-coloured hair. She was, however, a good deal too much taken up with her own affairs to do more than spare him a momentary attention. He was mad of course, but then most of the people here, if not absolutely mad, were so odd that there wasn’t much in it. She went back to thinking about Peter Brandon and how absolutely enraging it was that he should have dared to come down here-getting Mrs. Masters to take him in and positively pushing himself on to Miss Gwyneth! If the police wanted to arrest anyone they had better arrest Peter. It would just about serve him right.
These romantic thoughts were broken in upon by the entrance of Miss Silver and Mrs. Craddock, the latter as pale and nervous as if she were being ushered into a cage of lions instead of into a room full of people whom she met every day. She took the first chair she came to and sat on the edge of it looking frightened. Since there was no vacant chair beside her, Miss Silver had perforce to leave her there and cross the room. The seat she found gave her a very good view of everyone. She had the Miss Tremletts and Thomasina beside her, and beyond them Mr. Craddock, with Mr. John Robinson on the other side, hunched up on the window-seat with his back to the light. From across the room Augustus Remington and Miranda faced her, Miranda sprawled in one of the larger chairs, Augustus on a low stool in what she considered a ridiculously affected attitude. The two Inspectors had drawn chairs up to the writing-table.
As soon as everyone had been accommodated Inspector Jackson said in his slow, deep country voice,
“I am taking it for granted that you will all want to be of assistance to the police. Inspector Abbott has come down here from London about some notes that they are anxious to trace. A couple of them have turned up here. One of them was paid into the County Bank in Ledlington by Miss Weekes who has a fancy-work shop at Dedham. She says it was part of last Tuesday’s takings, and she has mentioned the names of several people who might have paid it over. Three of them are here now, and I would like to ask them whether they can remember anything that would help us-as, for instance, the amount of the bill-how they paid it-and if in notes, whether they thought there was anything at all out of the way about those notes.”
“I have never entered a fancy-work shop in my life,” said Peveril Craddock in a calm resonant voice.
Augustus threw out his hands.
“But, my dear Peveril-what a loss to yourself! The rows and rows of woolly bundles like fat contented sheep of some beautiful rainbow variety unknown to the plodding agriculturist-the sheen of silk, shifting and shoaling from one delicious hue to another-the bright plastic needles like spears of light-”
It was not easy to astonish Inspector Jackson. He said in a very definite tone,
“Did you buy anything from Miss Weekes on Tuesday, Mr. Remington?”
Augustus looked vague.
“I might have done. I was searching for a certain shade of silk-a fruitless quest. But when it comes to which day of the week, I fear I cannot help you. I am of those who believe that time is an illusion. Sometimes we drift with it-sometimes it passes us by. I am quite unable to say whether it was on Tuesday that my quest took me to Dedham.”
Miss Gwyneth leaned forward. She was wearing a chain of large brown wooden beads, and they made a rattling sound.
“Oh, but it was,” she said. “Because when I went in in the afternoon they said you had been there. I mean, Miss Weekes did-I didn’t speak to Miss Hill. Miss Weekes said she was so sorry she hadn’t the colour you wanted.”
“One of those fluent shades-” Augustus murmured.
Jackson said firmly,
“Well, Mr. Remington, it was Tuesday. Now can you remember the amount of your bill?”
“Oh, dear, no. Money is merely a distasteful symbol-I really do not regard it.”
He spoke in a lisping way which gave Jackson a strong feeling that he ought to have been smacked for it when he was young. He had two little boys of his own, and they would have been over his knee and getting six of the best if they had started any such finicky nonsense. He said shortly,
“Miss Weekes says that the amount was thirty-two and sixpence.”
“She is probably right.”
“And that you paid her with a pound note, a ten shilling note, and half a crown.”
“How distressingly observant.”
‘You agree with her statement?
The hands were waved as if in supplication.
“My dear man, don’t ask me! I am sure she must be right.”
“Then I have to ask you whether you noticed anything at all unusual about the pound note.”
It was at this point that Mr. John Robinson was heard to remark that hope sprang eternal in the human breast. Augustus sighed.
“I do not notice pound notes. I have just been telling you so. They exist, but I do not admit them any farther into my consciousness than that.”
Inspector Jackson persevered.
“Can you tell me how this pound note came into your possession?”
Augustus shook his head.
“I suppose from my bank. I have a modest account at Dedham. My means are small, but I occasionally cash a cheque.”
“Well, we can get the date of your last cheque from them- unless you can remember it yourself”
“Oh, no.”
Jackson turned to Miss Gwyneth, who proved voluble and informative. She had bought a yard of canvas in a neutral shade, three bundles of blue raffia, and one bundle each of green, red, and yellow. And she had paid with a pound note, which did not quite cover the amount of the bill, but there was a small credit, as she had brought back two bundles of raffia which she had bought in a bad light the week before.
“Not at all the right shade, Inspector, and MissWeekes is always most obliging. And I paid with a pound note, as I said, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you where it came from, because there was a five-pound note that I had put away for some time, and I changed it at the railway station at Dedham the last time I went to London about a month ago, and the note might have been part of the change, or I might have had it by me for some time-I really can’t say. But I certainly did not notice anything peculiar.”
Too much information can be as disconcerting as too little. Miss Gwyneth went on to recall that she had received a registered envelope containing three pound notes at Christmas, the gift of an aged aunt who had an incurable objection to writing cheques. She also remembered having obliged Mrs. Craddock with a pound’s worth of silver for a pound note one day when she had no change for the bus. About a fortnight ago, she thought, but she wasn’t quite sure.