A constable was standing in the porch, and he looked at me suspiciously. No doubt he perceived something very sardonic in my merriment.
I walked out of the gate, before which a car was standing, and as I paused to light a cigarette I heard the door of the Guest House open and close. I glanced back, and there was Paul Harley coming to join me.
“Now, Knox,” he said, briskly, “we have got our hands full.”
“My dear Harley, I am both angry and bewildered. Too angry and too bewildered to think clearly.”
“I can quite understand it. I should become homicidal if I were forced to submit for long to the company of Inspector Aylesbury. Of course, I had anticipated the arrest of Colin Camber, and I fear there is worse to come.”
“What do you mean, Harley?”
“I mean that failing the apprehension of the real murderer, I cannot see, at the moment, upon what the case for the defence is to rest.”
“But surely you demonstrated out there in the garden that he could not possibly have fired the shot?”
“Words, Knox, words. I could pick a dozen loopholes in my own argument. I had only hoped to defer the inevitable. I tell you, there is worse to come. Two things we must do at once.”
“What are they?”
“We must persuade the man on duty to allow us to examine the Tudor garden, and we must see the Chief Constable, whoever he may be, and prevail upon him to requisition the assistance of Scotland Yard. With Wessex in charge of the case I might have a chance. Whilst this disastrous man Aylesbury holds the keys there is none.”
“You heard what he said about Miss Beverley?”
We were now walking rapidly along the high road, and Harley nodded.
“I did,” he said. “I had expected it. He was inspired with this brilliant idea last night, and his ideas are too few to be lightly scrapped. If the Chief Constable is anything like the Inspector, what we are going to do heaven only knows.”
“I take it, Harley, that you are convinced of Colin Camber’s innocence?”
Harley did not answer for a moment, whereupon I glanced at him anxiously, then:
“Colin Camber,” he replied, “is of so peculiar a type that I could not presume to say of what he is capable or is not capable. The most significant point in his favour is this: He is a man of unusual intellect. The planning of this cunning crime to such a man would have been child’s play— child’s play, Knox. But is it possible to believe that his genius would have failed him upon the most essential detail of all, namely, an alibi?”
“It is not.”
“Of course it is not. Which, continuing to regard Camber as an assassin, reduces us to the theory that the crime was committed in a moment of passion. This I maintain to be also impossible. It was no deed of impulse.”
“I agree with you.”
“Now, I believe that the enquiry is going to turn upon a very delicate point. If I am wrong in this, then perhaps I am wrong in my whole conception of the case. But have you considered the mass of evidence against Colin Camber?”
“I have, Harley,” I replied, sadly, “I have.”
“Think of all that we know, and which the Inspector does not know. Every single datum points in the same direction. No prosecution could ask for a more perfect case. Upon this fact I pin my hopes. Where an Aylesbury rushes in I fear to tread. The analogy with an angel was accidental, Knox!” he added, smilingly. “In other words, it is all too obvious. Yet I have failed once, Knox, failed disastrously, and it may be that in my anxiety to justify myself I am seeking for subtlety where no subtlety exists.”
Chapter 25 AYLESBURY’S THEORY
There were strangers about Cray’s Folly and a sort of furtive activity, horribly suggestive. We had not pursued the circular route by the high road which would have brought us to the lodge, but had turned aside where the swing-gate opened upon a footpath into the meadows. It was the path which I had pursued upon the day of my visit to the Lavender Arms. A second private gate here gave access to the grounds at a point directly opposite the lake; and as we crossed the valley, making for the terraced lawns, I saw unfamiliar figures upon the veranda, and knew that the cumbersome processes of the law were already in motion.
I was longing to speak to Val Beverley and to learn what had taken place during her interview with Inspector Aylesbury, but Harley led the way toward the tower wing, and by a tortuous path through the rhododendrons we finally came out on the northeast front and in sight of the Tudor garden.
Harley crossed to the entrance, and was about to descend the steps, when the constable on duty there held out his arm.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but I have orders to admit no one to this part of the garden.”
“Oh,” said Harley, pulling up short, “but I am acting in this case. My name is Paul Harley.”
“Sorry, sir,” replied the constable, “but you will have to see Inspector Aylesbury.”
My friend uttered an impatient exclamation, but, turning aside:
“Very well, constable,” he muttered; “I suppose I must submit. Our friend, Aylesbury,” he added to me, as we walked away, “would appear to be a martinet as well as a walrus. At every step, Knox, he proves himself a tragic nuisance. This means waste of priceless time.”
“What had you hoped to do, Harley?”
“Prove my theory,” he returned; “but since every moment is precious, I must move in another direction.”
He hurried on through the opening in the box hedge and into the courtyard. Manoel had just opened the doors to a sepulchral-looking person who proved to be the coroner’s officer, and:
“Manoel!” cried Harley, “tell Carter to bring a car round at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I haven’t time to fetch my own,” he explained.
“Where are you off to?”
“I am off to see the Chief Constable, Knox. Aylesbury must be superseded at whatever cost. If the Chief Constable fails I shall not hesitate to go higher. I will get along to the garage. I don’t expect to be more than an hour. Meanwhile, do your best to act as a buffer between Aylesbury and the women. You understand me?”
“Quite,” I returned, shortly. “But the task may prove no light one, Harley.”
“It won’t,” he assured me, smiling grimly. “How you must regret, Knox, that we didn’t go fishing!”
With that he was off, eager-eyed and alert, the mood of dreamy abstraction dropped like a cloak discarded. He fully realized, as I did, that his unique reputation was at stake. I wondered, as I had wondered at the Guest House, whether, in undertaking to clear Colin Camber, he had acted upon sheer conviction, or, embittered by the death of his client, had taken a gambler’s chance. It was unlike him to do so. But now beyond reach of that charm of manner which Colin Camber possessed, and discounting the pathetic sweetness of his girl-wife, I realized how black was the evidence against him.
Occupied with these, and even more troubled thoughts, I was making my way toward the library, undetermined how to act, when I saw Val Beverley coming along the corridor which communicated with Madame de Stämer’s room.
I read a welcome in her eyes which made my heart beat the faster.
“Oh, Mr. Knox,” she cried, “I am so glad you have returned. Tell me all that has happened, for I feel in some way that I am responsible for it.”
I nodded gravely.
“You know, then, where Inspector Aylesbury went when he left here, after his interview with you?”
She looked at me pathetically.
“He went to the Guest House, of course.”
“Yes,” I said; “he was close behind us.”
“And”— she hesitated— “Mr. Camber?”
“He has been detained.”