“Oh, I see. Well, come along, then, sir. And, Graves, you’d better come, too. Thank you, Mr. Nesbitt, sir; I think I’ve finished here now. But it’s a pity you threw that note away. If you only remembered where you’d thrown it, I’d have a search made. Try and think during the next few hours. Mrs. Nesbitt might know; ask her. It’d be a valuable clue. Are you ready, then, Mr. Doyle, sir?”
As Doyle went out of the room he caught a look from Guy. The look said quite plainly: “Come back here when you’ve got rid of him.” Doyle nodded.
Followed by the constable, they made their way out to the road.
“And while I’m speaking to Mr. Howard,” remarked the Inspector very airily. “I expect you’d like to be telephoning your report through to The Courier, wouldn’t you?”
Doyle nodded. He had already taken the opportunity of ringing up The Courier, and asking the editor to hold a couple of columns for him if possible as he had a scoop of the first magnitude, and without divulging too much of its nature, he had succeeded in obtaining exceedingly good terms if it should, in the editor’s opinion, come up to its rosy forecast; it was too late to send one of The Courier’s own men down, and Doyle, being a freelance, had been able to make almost his own terms. They were very good terms indeed, and they provided for the future as well as for the present. Mr. Doyle ought to have been exceedingly buoyant.
Yet his nod in answer to the Inspector’s suggestion had been an absent one. To tell the truth, he was engaged in wondering very busily how he was going to warn George to say nothing about Dora’s presence in the house, and Dora to conceal herself with efficiency and despatch, before the Inspector surprised the truth out of either of them.
Mr. Doyle was not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself or not.
“It’s a funny business altogether,” pronounced the Inspector, as they turned in at the next gate. “Tell you what it reminds me of, sir. It’s like nothing so much as one of those shilling shockers you read on a railway journey. Now, another case of murder I had down in these parts once….”
Even that could not resolve Mr. Doyle’s perplexity for him.