“I shall never be able to thank you enough if you do,” the girl said in a low tone. “Perhaps you can imagine something of the nightmare the last day or two has been, since I realised that I—that they—” Her voice broke.
Roger drew her arm through his and patted her hand paternally. “That’s all over now, my dear. No need to worry about that again. Uncle Roger’s on the job now. Besides,” he went on, instinctively shying away from any such display of feeling, “to touch on lesser matters, I believe I can promise you that even the inspector is giving up that theory now too.”
“He is?” Margaret did not attempt to conceal her joy. She looked at Roger with shining eyes. “He is really? Did he tell you so?”
“Well, not in so many words,” hedged Roger, who had not the least solid ground for this assertion. “But he meant me to infer it, I think. He’s a very cautious bird, though, and would never say anything outright.”
“Oh, thank Heaven!” Margaret murmured. “At last I can begin to breathe again!”
Anthony glared at the horizon and muttered beneath his breath. The words “damfool,” “anointed ass” and “tommyrot” were indistinctly audible.
The rest of the way Margaret seemed to dance on air, and Roger rejoiced openly with her. Even Anthony was so far infected by the general feeling as to forget his dark broodings regarding the inspector’s state of anointed asininity and possess himself of Margaret’s other arm. It was a singularly hot day, but Margaret did not appear to mind the extra burden in the least. Perhaps she liked having her arms carried for her.
They reached the nearer flight of steps and descended to the ledge.
“I’ve only been down here once since Elsie’s death,” Margaret remarked, as they made their way along it in single file with Roger in the van. “I’m not even sure whereabouts she—where it happened.”
“Just along there, it was,” Roger said, pointing ahead of them. “You see where the ledge broadens out for twenty or thirty yards. Just in the middle of that. The little cave’s there too.”