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"You did say my full name, didn't you?" said Mrs. Twining.

"I did," replied Harding, returning the statement to his pocket.

"Such a nuisance for you to have had to come all this way for so little," she remarked. "Is that really the only thing you wanted?"

"As a matter of fact it isn't," said Harding. "Partly I came to see you in the hope that you, who knew Sir Arthur for a great many years, may be able to throw a little light on something which frankly puzzles me." He took out his pocket-book, but before he opened it he glanced up from it and added: "By the way, I have some news which I think will please you. Information has been laid with me that looks like providing an alibi for Geoffrey Billington-Smith."

She inclined her head courteously. "I am very glad to hear it," she said. "Not that I ever imagined that Geoffrey had killed his father."

"You are very fond of him, Mrs. Twining, are you not?"

"Did I give you that impression?" she inquired.

"Decidedly," Harding said with a smile. "Was it a false one?"

"Oh, no!" she answered. "Not false. I am fond of Geoffrey, as one must be of a boy one has known from his infancy. He has many faults, but I ascribe most of them to his upbringing. His father neither understood him nor liked him."

"It was unfortunate for him that his mother left Sir Arthur," remarked Harding.

"Very," said Mrs. Twining in a dry voice. "Perhaps had she been wiser, less impetuous, things would have happened differently. But she was young and in love and married a man who —- Well, it is all ancient history now, and not worth discussing."

"Were you intimate with her, Mrs. Twining?"

She reflected. "Oh — intimate! She was a school-friend; and I suppose you may say we were fairly intimate. Why do you ask me that?"

"Only because I somehow or other got the impression that you came to live in this district to be near Geoffrey. I wondered whether you had done so for his mother's sake."

She straightened the blotter on the desk. "I do not know what can have given you that impression, Inspector. I lost sight of his mother many years ago — when she deserted Sir Arthur, in fact. I chose the district because, having lived abroad all my life, I have scarcely any friends in England. I did not see eye to eye with Sir Arthur, perhaps, but I had known him a long time, and to settle where he had already formed acquaintances to whom he could introduce me seemed a natural thing to do." She looked up and saw him watching her, not suspiciously, but with a kind of grave sympathy. "The fact that I had known his first wife and was fond of her son may have influenced me a little," she said. "I'm afraid, however, that I have not done very much for Geoffrey, except occasionally to talk Sir Arthur into a better humour on his behalf."

"Sir Arthur seems to have had more respect for you than for most of the people he knew, judging from what I have been told," commented Harding.

"When one has known a man for a great many years," said Mrs. Twining easily, "one does acquire a certain influence over him. You must forgive me, Inspector, but is my residence in this district the matter which you said was puzzling you?"

"No," replied Harding. "That isn't it." He opened his pocket-book and took from it the half-sheet of notepaper with the word "There' scrawled across it. "This, Mrs. Twining, was found on Sir Arthur's desk, under his hand, on Monday."

She cast a quick glance up at him and took the paper.

She did not speak for several moments, but presently she said in a level voice, not raising her eyes from the paper. "I don't quite understand. You say this was found on Sir Arthur's desk -"

"I believe it to have been written after he was stabbed, Mrs. Twining. Does it convey anything to you?"

Her eyelids just flickered, another woman less self-controlled, he suspected, might have winced. "No," she said deliberately, and held the paper out to him. The look of amusement had vanished from her face. "It conveys nothing to me. I am sorry." She watched him fold it again and put it back in his pocket-book. She seemed to hesitate on the brink of speech, and finally asked: "Do you feel it to be of importance, Inspector?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Twining. I had hoped that you might be able to enlighten me."

"It appears to be a very ordinary word, of no particular significance," she said. "The start of a sentence, I imagine." She rose, and repeated: "I am sorry. It is a pity Sir Arthur had time only to write that one word. Is there anything else you wished to ask me?"

"Nothing else," Harding answered. "I'm afraid I've taken up your time to no purpose."

She moved over to the bell and pressed it. "Not at all," she said politely. "I only regret that I am unable to help you." She glanced fleetingly towards him. "What is your own theory, Inspector? Or have you none?"

"No doubt it is, as you say, the start of a sentence," he replied.

The butler came into the room, holding open the door. Harding took his leave of Mrs. Twining and went away, back to the police station at Ralton, where he found the Superintendent and Sergeant Nethersole awaiting him.

The Superintendent was in a mood of profound disgust and greeted Harding with the information that the whole case had gone to glory.

"What's happened?" asked Harding, rather abstractedly.

"You sent the Sergeant on here to make inquiries along the road to Bramhurst. Well, we've just had a report from Laxton," answered the Superintendent.

"Oh, yes! Captain Billington-Smith's movements. He's ruled out, is he?"

"It looks precious like it," said the Superintendent gloomily. "Young Mason, of Mason's Stores there, states that he passed the Captain's car on his motor-bike at twelve-fifteen on Monday morning, just short of the village. He says the Captain was changing a flat tyre, which is why he happened to notice him."

"How far from the Grange is Laxton?" inquired Harding.

"That's just it," said the Superintendent, "it's eighteen miles, and you can't make it less. I've been working it out, but it's not a bit of use, Mr. Harding, no matter how fast he drove. He couldn't have got back from there to the Grange and still reached Bramhurst at one-thirty. No, the bottom's been knocked out of the case, and that's all there is to it." He leaned back in his chair and tucked his thumbs in his belt. "Which brings us," he announced, "back to that Halliday."

His tone implied that he was prepared to expatiate on the subject, but the telephone suddenly buzzed at his elbow, and he was obliged to answer it. He became entangled immediately in what appeared to be an involved conversation with some person unknown, and Harding, seizing his opportunity said: "I'll come back later, Superintendent," and escaped, closely followed by the Sergeant.

"You didn't think it was the Captain, did you, sir?" said the Sergeant, outside the station.

"No, the time didn't fit. I'm going up to the Grange now. And I'd better test that alibi of young Billington-Smith's while I'm about it. Come along, Sergeant, and you can direct me to this lane that leads from the Grange to Lyndhurst village."

The Sergeant climbed into the car. "Right, sir. You drive to Lyndhurst and we'll go on to the Grange that way, if you're agreeable. That'll save you having to turn to come back again to the Grange, which you might have a bit of difficulty over, it being what you'd call narrow, that lane."

Neither being of a talkative disposition, there was little conversation on the way to Lyndhurst. The Sergeant asked Harding what he wanted to do at the Grange, and on being told that the Inspector wished to obtain more precise information on the subject of Mrs. Twining's movements on Monday morning, merely nodded and relapsed into meditative silence.

The lane in question led into the middle of Lyndhurst village, immediately opposite the church. A few cottages were huddled together at the top end, but these continued for only a few hundred yards. Beyond them Moorsale Park lay on both sides of the lane, behind somewhat untidy hedges.