“Can’t help that, sir, I’m afraid,” replied the inspector cheerily. “And if you’re not going to be open with me, I daresay you’ll find me more offensive still. And you can’t bluff me, sir, you know. Not that I blame you for trying; I’d do the same myself for a lady I’d got into a mess with.” The inspector’s choice of words may not have been fortunate, but his sentiment was admirable. “Still, you’ve given yourself away too much in this note, you know, sir—besides what I’ve been able to find out elsewhere. For instance, I know that Mrs. Vane had been your mistress for some little time, that you’d got tired of her and were trying to break with her, and that she was threatening you if you did. I know all the essentials, you see. It’s only a few details I want you to tell me, and I’d much rather have them from you than from anybody else.”
The young man had put up a good fight, but it was plain to Roger that he now accepted defeat. Indeed, it was difficult to see what else he could do. Dropping back into his chair, he acknowledged the truth of the inspector’s words by a tacit hiatus. “If I answer your questions,” he said curtly, “will you treat what I tell you as private and confidential?”
“As far as I possibly can, sir,” the inspector promised. “It’s no wish of mine to drag out unnecessary scandals, or make things awkward which might have been better left undisturbed.”
“I can’t see what you’re driving at, in any case,” Woodthorpe said wearily, lighting another cigarette. “Mrs. Vane is dead, isn’t she? What does it matter whether her death was accident or suicide? It can’t help her to have these things raked over.”
“It’s my duty to look into it, sir,” replied the inspector primly. “Now, when I mentioned the word ‘suicide’ just now you were startled, weren’t you? Did it cross your mind that she might have killed herself because you insisted on breaking with her, and she didn’t want to let you go?”
Woodthorpe flushed. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “It did.”
“Ah!” Having succeeded in impressing the young man with his own mental acuteness, the inspector proceeded to the questions of real importance. “Did you keep that appointment, sir?”
“No.” Reconciled as he now was to the necessity of being frank, Woodthorpe spoke with no hesitation or sullenness. “You were wrong about that note of mine. It’s nearly three weeks old. That appointment was for a fortnight ago last Tuesday, and I did keep it then.”
“I see.” The inspector’s voice did not show the slightest surprise at this unexpected piece of news; Roger’s face, on the contrary, betrayed the liveliest astonishment. “And where was the meeting held, sir? What, in fact, is ‘the usual place’?”
“A little cave we knew of on that ledge, quite near the place she was killed. I discovered it about a year ago; and was struck with its privacy. Anyone who didn’t know of it would never find it. The mouth is at an angle in the rock, and there’s a big boulder masking it. We’ve been in there heaps of times when people have passed by outside without spotting us.”