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Page 103
"No, I don't. I have got that worked out."
"Indeed? You interest me."
"Mr. Camber has an accomplice at Cray's Folly."
"What?" exclaimed Harley, and into his keen grey eyes crept a look of
real interest.
"He has an accomplice," repeated the Inspector. "A certain witness was
strangely reluctant to mention Mr. Camber's name. It was only after
very keen examination that I got it at last. Now, Colonel Menendez had
not retired last night, neither had a certain other party. That other
party, sir, knows why Colonel Menendez was wandering about the garden
at midnight."
At first, I think, this astonishing innuendo did not fully penetrate to
my mind, but when it did so, it seemed to galvanize me. Springing up
from the chair in which I had been seated:
"You preposterous fool!" I exclaimed, hotly.
It was the last straw. Inspector Aylesbury strode to the door and
throwing it open once more, turned to me:
"Be good enough to leave the house, Mr. Knox," he said. "I am about to
have it officially searched, and I will have no strangers present."
I think I could have strangled him with pleasure, but even in my rage I
was not foolhardy enough to lay myself open to that of which the
Inspector was quite capable at this moment.
Without another word I walked out of the study, took my hat and stick,
and opening the front door, quitted the Guest House, from which I had
thus a second time been dismissed ignominiously.
Appreciation of this fact, which came to me as I stepped into the
porch, awakened my sense of humour--a gift truly divine which has
saved many a man from desperation or worse. I felt like a schoolboy who
had been turned out of a class-room, and I was glad that I could laugh
at myself.
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."
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