“I do. I hate calling a pick-axe an ‘agricultural implement.’ All right, pick away.”
The inspector drank a little beer with a thoughtful air. “Let’s begin with a motive, then. Now can you see anyone in the case with a motive for Meadow’s death?”
“Wait a minute. You still think his death is mixed up with Mrs. Vane’s? You’re taking that as a starting-point?”
“Well, we can always keep the other possibility before us, but it seems a fair enough assumption, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes; the balance of probability is certainly in favour of it. But I don’t think we ought to forget that Meadows (we’ll call him Meadows; it’s easier) was quite possibly a blackmailer, among his other activities; and once we admit blackmail the field is enormously widened.”
“Oh, yes, sir; I’m not forgetting that. But you must remember that he was certainly down here for some specific purpose to do with his wife—the coincidence otherwise would be so great that I think we can wash it out altogether; so if he was blackmailing, it was either his wife or somebody very closely connected with his wife.”
“Such as her husband?”
“Such as Dr. Vane,” said the inspector meticulously. “Well, you see what I mean. It seems to me we can take it for granted that his death is due to somebody already mixed up with the case.”
“Yes,” Roger agreed. “I think you’ve clinched that point.”
“So that brings us back to what I asked you first of all: can you see anyone in the case with a motive for getting him out of the way?”