“We know now,” continued Anthony, “the reason underlying her accusation of Llewellyn. Which you observe was a merely general-indefinite sort of accusation. She wouldn’t give a definite reason for it—she kept silent about his attitude towards her—even to denying that she had been in this room.”
“But why did she do that?” questioned Peter again.
Anthony shrugged his shoulders. “Most women are different about their love affairs in matters of this kind—after all Llewellyn found her attractive—she would probably forgive him that much more quickly than indifference—for instance. All women like to be liked—you know!”
“I don’t think Miss Lennox is a girl of that type,” asserted Peter vigorously. “I think she has proved that by——”
“Of course you don’t,” chaffed Anthony. “But whether you do or you don’t is of no consequence—take it from me.”
Peter relapsed into a chair. It was gradually being driven home to him that he was not showing himself to the best advantage this afternoon. “What are you going to do now?” he asked. Anthony carefully put the letter into his breast pocket.
“This certainly places Llewellyn in an unfavorable light,” he remarked. “He threatens the dead man—he’s Welsh, too—and has struck me throughout as a man who might make a dangerous enemy—still”—he pointed to the desk at the side of which Peter had seated himself. “Give me that bowl of ink,” he commanded. Peter obeyed—wondering again. Anthony held it up to the light. “Remember what Goodall said when he looked at this?”
“Yes,” said Peter. “Something about understanding what you meant.”
“Quite right—though I’m not absolutely sure that friend Goodall really did.” He glanced quickly round the room as though in search of something—“hand me that glass, will you, Daventry?” Holding the glass in his left hand, he carefully poured the ink from the bowl into it—very slowly—almost as though measuring it drop by drop. At last the bowl appeared empty—of ink. He handed it back to Peter. “The other tiny stone I mentioned a little time ago—see it at the bottom there—I knew it was there—I could hear it the first time I shook up the ink!”
Peter gazed into the ink-bowl with a feeling that he had gone back to school once more and was being confronted again with mathematical mysteries that he had never been too successful in solving. “A similar stone, Daventry, to those we found in the coal-scuttle.”