He smiled and patted me on the hand.
“Go back to your patient,” he said. “Forget every other duty but that of your calling until you get some definite word from me. I shall not keep you in suspense one minute longer than is absolutely necessary.”
He had risen. I rose too. But I was not satisfied. I could not leave the room with my ideas (I might say with my convictions) in such a turmoil.
“Inspector,” said I, “you will think me very obstinate, but all you have told me about Sears, all I have heard about him, in fact,”—this I emphasized,—“does not convince me of the entire folly of my own suspicions. Indeed, I am afraid that, if anything, they are strengthened. This steward, who is a doubtful character, I acknowledge, may have had his reasons for wishing Mrs. Fairbrother’s death, may even have had a hand in the matter; but what evidence have you to show that he, himself, entered the alcove, struck the blow or stole the diamond? I have listened eagerly for some such evidence, but I have listened in vain.”
“I know,” he murmured, “I know. But it will come; at least I think so.”
This should have reassured me, no doubt, and sent me away quiet and happy. But something—the tenacity of a deep conviction, possibly—kept me lingering before the inspector and finally gave me the courage to say:
“I know I ought not to speak another word; that I am putting myself at a disadvantage in doing so; but I can not help it, Inspector; I can not help it when I see you laying such stress upon the few indirect clues connecting the suspicious Sears with this crime, and ignoring the direct clues we have against one whom we need not name.”
Had I gone too far? Had my presumption transgressed all bounds and would he show a very natural anger? No, he smiled instead, an enigmatical smile, no doubt, which I found it difficult to understand, but yet a smile.
“You mean,” he suggested, “that Sears’ possible connection with the crime can not eliminate Mr. Grey’s very positive one; nor can the fact that Wellgood’s hand came in contact with Mr. Grey’s, at or near the time of the exchange of the false stone with the real, make it any less evident who was the guilty author of this exchange?”
The inspector’s hand was on the door-knob, but he dropped it at this, and surveying me very quietly said: