“My talk,” said the Baron, smiling, “was of the briefest. We exchanged but a pleasant word or two, and I passed on.”
“And yours,” said the detective to Hugh, “was perhaps of a more prolonged sort?”
“It may have been, Sergeant,” was my friend’s answer. He was looking pale but composed; and his manner was absolutely frank and unequivocal. “You see,” said he, “poor Annie was, after all, one of the household, and there was nothing out of the way in my stopping to speak with her. We may have chatted for ten minutes—I should think no longer—while I put down my gun and lighted a cigarette. I was back at the house by a quarter past three or thereabouts.”
“And you remembered, and returned for your gun?”
“That must have been just about four o’clock.”
“So that the murder, if murder it was, must have been committed some time between 3.15 and 4 p.m.”
“That is so, I suppose.”
The detective stood as if mutely weighing the few facts at his disposition for a moment or two, then turned to the General.
“We shall want evidence of identity, Sir Calvin,” he said. “Your housekeeper, I suppose, engaged the young woman? Can I see her?”
Mrs. Bingley was rung for, and in the interval, while awaiting her appearance, Le Sage approached our host.