Rampole closed the door of the bedroom behind them, and turned to face Sir Benjamin in the dim upper hallway of Dr. Markley's house. He could see the white skirt of a nurse descending the stairs ahead.
"He saw whoever it was," the chief constable said, grimly. "Yes, and he'll remember. What the devil, though, was he doing up there, to begin with?
"Just curiosity, I suppose. And now what?"
Sir Benjamin opened the case of a big gold watch, glanced at it rather nervously, and shut it up again.
"It's Fell's show. I'm dashed if I know." His voice grew querulous. "He's gone over my head completely-mine! I mean to say, he has quite a stand-in with Sir William Rossiter, the High Commissioner at the Yard; he seems to be on intimate terms with everybody in England. And he's been pulling wires…. All I know is that we're to meet the five-four train from London, and nab somebody who gets off it. Well, I hope everybody's waiting. Come along."
Dr. Markley was still on his afternoon round, and they did not linger. As they went down into the High Street, Rampole was rather more nervous than the chief constable.
Neither last night nor today could he elicit anything more from Dr. Fell.
"What's more," the chief constable grumbled, in the same tone, "I will not go to Southampton to meet the rector's uncle. I don't care if he is an old friend; the rector is going instead. I have business in Manchester — that's Thursday-and I've got to be away a week at the least. Dash it! Something always comes up. I can't find Payne, either; he has some papers I must take to Manchester along with me. Dash it! Here I've wasted all this time with the blasted case, when I could easily turn it over to the proper people, and Fell takes the whole thing out of my hands…
He was talking rather desperately, Rampole sensed, talking away at anything that came into his head, so that he would not be forced to think. And the American agreed with him.
Sir Benjamin's grey Daimler was waiting in the elm-shadowed street. It was tea-time, and few people were abroad. Rampole wondered whether the news of Herbert's death had yet filtered into Chatterham; the body had been conveyed to the Hall late last night, and the servants warned with awesome threats to say nothing until they were given permission, but that was no guarantee at all. Last night, to keep away the horrors, Dorothy had stayed with Mrs. Fell. Until almost daybreak Rampole had heard them talking in the room next to his. Exhausted, and yet unable to sleep, he had sat at the window, smoking innumerable cigarettes, and staring with smarting eyelids at the whitening dawn….