"You mean a signet-ring? Good Lord! I forgot all about it, that night at the bungalow! So that’s where you got your story about the initial ‘B.’ from? I never thought of that."
Sir Clinton made no comment, and after a few seconds Markfield continued.
"In the early days, we wrote letters to each other—just a few. Later on, I urged her to burn them, for safety’s sake. But she treasured them, apparently; and she wouldn’t do it. She said they were quite safe in a locked drawer in her bedroom. Silverdale never entered her room, you know. It seemed safe enough. It was these damned letters that landed me in the end.
"Yvonne and I hadn’t any reason to worry about Silverdale. He’d lost all interest in her and gone off after Avice Deepcar. Oh, that was all quite respectable and above-board. She’s a decent girl—nothing against her. We’d have been quite glad to see him marry her, except that it wouldn’t have suited our book. My screw was good enough for a single man. It wouldn’t have kept two of us—not on the basis we needed, anyhow. And a divorce case might have got me chucked out of the Croft-Thornton. Where would we have been then? So you see that alley was barred.
"By and by, young Hassendean turned up. When I found he was getting keen on Yvonne, I encouraged her to keep him on her string. She had no use for the boy except as a dancing-partner; but we used him as a blind to cover the real state of affairs. So long as people could talk about him and her, they weren’t likely to think of her and me. So she led him on until the brat thought he was indispensable. I suppose he fell in love with her, in a way. We never imagined he might be dangerous.
"That was the state of things up to ten days before the affair at the bungalow. There seemed to be no reason why it shouldn’t have lasted for years. But just then Yvonne got news of this money that had been left her—about £12,000. That put a new light on the affair. It gave her an income of her own. We could afford to let Silverdale divorce her; then I could have chucked the Croft-Thornton, married her, and set up in private practice somewhere. Her money would have kept us going until I had scraped a business together; and no one cares a damn about the matrimonial affairs of a chemical expert in private practice.
"We talked it over, and we practically made up our minds to take that course. It seemed a bit too good to be true. Anyhow it would have got us out of all the hole-and-corner business. After three years of that, we were getting a bit sick of it. Another week or two, and Westerhaven would have had all the scandal it needed, if it was inclined that way. We’d have got each other. And Silverdale could have married his girl with all the sympathy of the town. Ideal, eh?"
He puffed savagely at his pipe for a moment or two before speaking again.
"Then that young skunk Hassendean. . . . He must needs get above himself and ruin the whole scheme, damn him! I can only guess what happened. He got to know about the properties of hyoscine. There was plenty of it at the Croft-Thornton. He must have stolen some of it and used it to drug Yvonne that night. However, that’s going a bit fast. I’ll tell you what happened, as it seemed to me."
Markfield paused and glanced inquiringly at the Inspector.
"It’s all right," Flamborough reassured him. "If you don’t speak quicker than that, I can take it down easily."
Markfield leaned over and gave the contents of his flask a gentle shake before continuing his narrative.
"That night, I’d been out late at the Research Station on a piece of work. I mean I’d gone there after dinner for a few minutes. When I finished, I came in by the Lizardbridge Road in my car. It was a bit foggy, and I was driving slowly. Just after I’d passed the bungalow, I met an open car. We were both crawling, owing to the fog; and I had a good look at the people in the other car. One was young Hassendean. The other was Yvonne; and even as I passed them, I could see there was something queer about the business. Besides, what would she be doing With that young whelp away out of town? I knew her far too well to think she was up to any hanky-panky with him.
"It looked queer. So as soon as I was past them, I turned my car, meaning to follow them and stand by. Unfortunately in the fog, I almost ditched my car in turning; and it gave me some trouble to swing round—one wheel got into the trench at the edge of the road. It was a minute or so before I got clear again. Then I went off after them.
"I saw the car at the door of the bungalow, and some lights on in the place which hadn’t been there when I’d passed it on my way down. So I stopped my car at the gate and walked up to the bungalow door. It was locked.
