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Page 99
"Oh, and now perhaps _you_ will tell me, Mrs. Camber, when and where
your husband first met Colonel Menendez?"
Every vestige of colour fled from the girl's face.
"So far as I know--they never met," she replied, haltingly.
"Could you swear to that?"
"Yes."
I think that hitherto she had not fully realized the nature of the
situation; but now something in the Inspector's voice, or perhaps in
our glances, told her the truth. She moved to where Colin Camber was
sitting, looking down at him questioningly, pitifully. He put his arm
about her and drew her close.
Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat and returned his note-book to
his pocket.
"I am going to take a look around the garden," he announced.
My respect for him increased slightly, and Harley and I followed him
out of the study. A police sergeant was sitting in the hall, and Ah
Tsong was standing just outside the door.
"Show me the way to the garden," directed the Inspector.
Ah Tsong stared stupidly, whereupon Paul Harley addressed him in his
native language, rapidly and in a low voice, in order, as I divined,
that the Inspector should not hear him.
"I feel dreadfully guilty, Knox," he confessed, in a murmured aside.
"For any Englishman, fictitious characters excepted, to possess a
knowledge of Chinese is almost indecent."
Presently, then, I found myself once more in that unkempt garden of
which I retained such unpleasant memories.
Inspector Aylesbury stared all about and up at the back of the house,
humming to himself and generally behaving as though he were alone.
Before the little summer study he stood still, and:
"Oh, I see," he muttered.
What he had seen was painfully evident. The right-hand window, beneath
which there was a permanent wooden seat, commanded an unobstructed view
of the Tudor garden in the grounds of Cray's Folly. Clearly I could
detect the speck of high-light upon the top of the sun-dial.
The Inspector stepped into the hut. It contained a bookshelf upon which
a number of books remained, a table and a chair, with some few other
dilapidated appointments. I glanced at Harley and saw that he was
staring as if hypnotized at the prospect in the valley below. I
observed a constable on duty at the top of the steps which led down
into the Tudor garden, but I could see nothing to account for Harley's
fixed regard, until:
"Pardon me one moment, Inspector," he muttered, brusquely.
Brushing past the indignant Aylesbury, who was examining the contents
of the shelves in the hut, he knelt upon the wooden seat and stared
intently through the open window.
"One-two-three-four-five-six-_seven_," he chanted. "Good! That will
settle it."
"Oh, I see," said Inspector Aylesbury, standing strictly upright, his
prominent eyes turned in the direction of the kneeling Harley. "One,
two, three, four, and so on will settle it, eh? If you don't mind me
saying so, it was settled already."
"Yes?" replied Harley, standing up, and I saw that his eyes were very
bright and that his face was slightly flushed. "You think the case is
so simple as that?"
"Simple?" exclaimed the Inspector. "It's the most cunning thing that
was ever planned, but I flatter myself that I have a good straight eye
which can see a fairly long way."
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