“Don’t be absurd. This is no time to quibble. And please come to the point.”
Willoughby went white to the lips. He seemed about to make an angry retort when suddenly a definite sense of his own awkward position came home to him. The angry astonishment on his face gave place to a look of sullen determination. “Well,” he said, “since you must know—those notes were paid to me by a well-known Seabourne gentleman. So you can rule me out of any connection with Miss Delaney.”
“Name—if you please?” said Bannister curtly. He was eminently business-like now.
“Oh—I hate all this information-giving business—it seems to me always to border on the unspeakable—no decent man can ever——”
Bannister broke in again—even more curtly perhaps than on the previous occasion. “Cut out the sentiment—can’t you see it’s to your own advantage to supply me with the information I want?”
“Of course I can,” snapped Willoughby, “and can’t you see that’s just the reason why a decent chap doesn’t want to do it. It’s to my advantage and consequently to somebody else’s detriment. That’s just the point.” He stopped again and bit his lip. “Well, I suppose there’s no help for it that I can see. I’ll tell you the whole story. My cousin is the well-known trainer of racehorses—Phipps-Holloway. He doesn’t send out too many winners as he hasn’t got a very big string now. But occasionally he pulls off a ‘coup’—usually with a dark two-year-old. He pulled one off at the Newmarket First July Meeting. He had a colt engaged in the July Stakes—‘Sherlock Holmes,’ by ‘Hurry On,’ out of ‘Popingaol.’ ” Bannister winced; he regarded it as a most unfortunate allusion. “He had won a good trial the week before and ‘Lobster’ gave me the tip. ‘Lobster’s’ my cousin. The colt opened at ‘tens’ but somebody evidently had got wind of the good thing—for when ‘The Blower’ money got wafted back on to the course—he came down ‘with a rush’ to ‘fives’ and actually started second favourite. I only got S.P. myself. I had a modest little tenner on—so I had fifty quid to draw. I drew it. Off my bookmaker, here in Seabourne. I’ve an arrangement that he pays all winnings in cash. That’s all there is to it.”
“Off your bookmaker?” yelled Bannister. “Who in thunder’s he?”
Willoughby took out his pocket-book and handed Bannister the usual card of the ordinary “Turf Accountant.” “Jacob Morley, 9, Macbeth Court Mansions, Seabourne.”
Sergeant Godfrey was unable to restrain his excitement. “Jacob Morley,” he cried, with a ring of triumph in his voice. “Jacob Morley! Don’t you remember—Branston’s story the night we first investigated the murder?”
Bannister nodded complacently. “I do,” he rejoined very quietly. “Jacob Morley was the name of the patient who had an appointment with Branston at the identical time that Sheila Delaney was found murdered. He must have kept that appointment after all!”