“That is my intention, Mr. Bathurst. Why do you ask?”
“Well, I’m going to have a little tour outside, if it’s all the same to you, and Bill Cunningham’s coming with me. Let’s hear from you when you’re ready and waiting. Come along, Bill.”
He walked out, down the stairs, through the hall and into the garden.
Anthony took out his pipe and filled it.
“Before I do anything more, Bill,” he said slowly, “I’m going to sit on this seat and smoke this good tobacco—and you can do likewise.”
“Good!” I uttered. “Tell me what you think.”
“No”—shaking his head—“I can’t do that, just yet. For Baddeley will be well on with his work of cross-questioning before very long, and there are some things I wouldn’t tell my mother—just yet.”
“Please yourself,” I grunted. “But what puzzles me,” I said, “is the scene of the crime as the journalists say. What took Prescott to the billiard room?”
“There are three reasonable solutions to that,” puffing at his pipe, “one—an assignation, two—he was called, drawn, or attracted there by something he saw, heard—or perhaps was afraid of happening—and three—he was taken there.”
“By force?” I interrupted.