A flicker of surprise flitted across the blank face. Then she nodded with only the ghost of a smile. It seemed that she was not unwilling to stay, and the smile was a little satirical and rather cruel, he thought. But he remembered that she was not Blunt’s keeper. In the next moment the men entered, their caps in their hands. Derrick leaned back in the big chair. The curtain was up now.
“Blunt,” he said with slow distinctness, “it may be that we are both wide of the mark in this attempt, and, frankly, I don’t see how you can be of any real assistance. It is only because you told me that sometimes you had been able to get under the skin of things that I’m making it. You understand that?”
The peddler nodded, and for an instant their eyes met. The man’s gaze swung back to the thing he had been staring at since he crossed the door-step. Irrepressible hunger and desire was in the stare. Derrick seemed oblivious to this.
“The murder took place in this room two years ago. Martin has told you that, I assume?”
“Yes, sir, he has.”
“It occurred between nine and ten at night. Over the mantel you will see a picture of Mr. Millicent, who was found dead in this chair where I am sitting. Apparently he had not time to make any defense. This jade thing used sometimes to stand in front of him, but it seems that it cannot have been there that night. It is not known, as yet”—here Derrick paused for a second—“how the murderer entered the house.”
He hesitated an instant, then looked suddenly at Perkins. “That’s right, isn’t it? It’s not known?”
“Not as yet, sir,” she answered slowly.
Martin made an involuntary gesture, but the peddler wheeled and sent the woman a swift and penetrating glance that had in it something of contempt, as though he had caught the drift of her words and they actually amused him.
“Can you tell me anything more, sir?”