"My maid was very much put about, naturally," she went on. "She asked you again and again what was at the back of it all; but you gave her no explanation whatever. When you’d completed your search of my house, you sat down with a pile of correspondence you’d collected—you see I know all about it—and you began to read through my private letters. Some of them you put aside; others you laid down in a pile on my desk. When you’d finished reading them all, you took away the ones you’d selected and left the rest on the desk. Then you left the house, without offering the slightest explanation of this raid of yours. I shan’t stand that, you know. You’ve no right to do things of that sort—throwing suspicion on me in this way, without the faintest ground for it. Naturally, my maid has been babbling about it and everyone knows the police have been on the premises. It’s put me in a dreadful position; and you’ll have to give me an explanation and an apology. It’s no use trying to deny the facts, you know. I can prove what I’ve said. And I want my letters back at once—the ones you stole. . . . You’ve no right to them, and I simply won’t put up with this kind of thing."
She broke off once more, evidently afraid that she was letting her feelings get the better of her. For a moment or two Sir Clinton made no reply. He seemed to be considering something carefully before he spoke.
"I suppose you know, Miss Deepcar," he said at last, "that Dr. Silverdale is under arrest."
The girl’s expression changed in an instant. Something like fear replaced her earlier anger.
"Dr. Silverdale? Arrested?" she demanded, with a tremor in her voice. "What do you mean?"
"He was arrested yesterday in connection with the affair at the bungalow."
Avice Deepcar’s eyes showed her amazement at the news.
"The affair at the bungalow?" she repeated. "But he had nothing to do with that! He couldn’t have had."
All her indignation seemed to have been swept away by this fresh information. She had the appearance of someone upon whom a wholly unexpected peril has descended. Sir Clinton seemed satisfied by the effect of his words; but without giving her time for thought, he pursued his narrative.
"Several things have turned up which seem to implicate him in that affair, and when we tried to extract some information from him about his movements on the night of the bungalow murder, he refused to say anything. He wouldn’t tell us where he had been at that time."
Avice Deepcar clasped and unclasped her hands mechanically for a second or two. It was obvious that she was thinking swiftly and coming to some decision upon which much might turn.
"He won’t say where he was?" she demanded in a trembling voice. "Why not?"
Sir Clinton made a vague gesture with his hand.
"I can hardly tell you his motive. Perhaps he hasn’t an alibi. I’ve told you what we know."
He looked keenly at the girl before him, evidently expecting something; and he was not disappointed.
"I can tell you where he was at that time," Avice said at last. "Probably you won’t believe me, but this is true, at any rate. He and I dined together in town that evening and after dinner we went home to my house. We had a lot to talk over. We reached my house about half-past eight. And then we began to talk things over. We had such a lot to discuss that the time passed without our noticing it; and when at last he got up to go, it was between one and two in the morning. So you see he couldn’t possibly have been at the bungalow."
Sir Clinton interjected a question:
"Why didn’t Dr. Silverdale tell us all this frankly when he was questioned about his movements during that night?"
Avice Deepcar flushed at the direct attack, but she evidently had made up her mind to make a clean breast of the whole business.
"I told you that Dr. Silverdale was with me that night from dinner-time until the early hours of the morning. As it happened, my maid was away that day and did not return until the next afternoon. You must have a pretty good idea of what people would have said about me if they got to know I’d been alone with Dr. Silverdale in my house. I shouldn’t have cared, really; because there was nothing in it. We were simply talking. But I expect that when you questioned him he thought of my position. He’s a married man—at least he was a married man then—and some people would have twisted the whole business into something very unpleasant for me, I’m sure. So I think, knowing him well, that he very likely didn’t want to give me away. He knew he’d had nothing to do with the murders, and I expect he imagined that the real murderer would be detected without his having to give any precise account of his doings on that night. If I’d known that he was running the risk of arrest, of course, I’d have insisted on his telling what really happened; but I’ve been out of town and I’d no idea things had got to this pitch."
Flamborough intervened as she paused for a moment.
