Part 31 (1/2)

”Yes, I'm all right again,” said Grey. Then he frowned and added: ”But the nuisance of it is that I shall always have this confounded limp.”

”You get off more lightly than a good many men I know,” said Flexen sadly.

”Yes. I'm not grousing much,” said Grey.

There came a pause, and then Grey said: ”I've been rather hoping to come across you. When you questioned me about my doings on the night of Loudwater's death, you asked me whether I heard him snore as I went through the library, going in and out of the Castle, and for reasons which seemed quite good to me at the time I told you I didn't. As a matter of fact, he was snoring like a pig when I came out.”

Mr. Flexen looked at him hard, thinking quickly. Then he said softly: ”My goodness! That would be half-past eleven!”

”Close on it,” said Grey.

”Well as a matter of fact, I didn't believe you,” said Mr. Flexen frankly. ”In my business, you know, one acquires a very good ear for the truth.”

Grey laughed cheerfully and said: ”I expect you do.”

”All the same, I'm glad to have it for certain,” said Mr. Flexen, smiling at him. ”Well, I must be getting on; let me give you a lift as far as Loudwater.”

Grey thanked him and stepped into the car.

When he had set him down, Mr. Flexen drove on in frowning thought.

Colonel Grey was speaking the truth, and in that case neither James Hutchings nor the mysterious woman had committed the murder, unless they had deliberately returned for the purpose. He did not believe that James Hutchings had returned; he thought it improbable that the mysterious woman had returned.

Even more important was the fact that this admission of Colonel Grey a.s.sured him that neither he nor Lady Loudwater had committed the murder.

Grey had evidently lied to s.h.i.+eld her. He had no less evidently learned that she did not need s.h.i.+elding. That admission had not at all simplified the problem.

The next morning Scotland Yard telegraphed to him the reply to its cable to Captain Shepherd. It ran:

_Loudwater allowed Mrs. Helena Truslove Crest Loudwater six hundred a year and gave her Crest_.

He had the mysterious woman at last!

He drove over to the Crest at once and learned from the caretaker that Mrs. Truslove was now living in London in a flat at Clarence Gate. He could not get away from his work till the afternoon, and it was past half-past four when he knocked at the door of her flat.

The maid led him down the pa.s.sage, opened the door on the right, and announced him.

Helena was sitting beside a table on which afternoon tea for two was set.

She looked surprised to hear his name.

”Mrs. Truslove?” he said.

”I was Mrs. Truslove,” she said, rising and holding out her hand. ”But now I am Mrs. Manley. You know my husband. He will be so pleased to see you again. I'm expecting him every minute.”

Mr. Flexen was for a moment conscious of a slight sensation of vertigo.

The mysterious woman was the wife of Herbert Manley!

He could not at once see the bearings of this fact, but ideas, fancies and suspicions raced one another through his head.

He checked them and said in a somewhat toneless voice: ”I shall be delighted to see him again. Have you been married long?”