She was silent a while, thinking; then she said: "What did you mean by saying: 'If it was a crime.' What else could it have been?"
"A suicide. The evidence was that the wound might have been self-inflicted," said Mr. Manley.
"Absurd! Lord Loudwater was the last man in the world to commit suicide!" she cried.
"That's purely a matter of individual opinion. I am of the opinion that a man of his uncontrollable temper was quite likely to commit suicide," he said firmly. "As for its being absurd, if there is any attempt to prove any one guilty of murdering him on purely circumstantial evidence, that person won't find anything absurd in the theory at all. In fact, he'll work it for all it's worth. I think myself that, with Dr. Thornhill's evidence in mind, the police, or the Public Prosecutor, or the Treasury, or whoever it is that decides those things, will never attempt in this case to bring any one to trial for the murder on merely circumstantial evidence."
"Do you think not?" she said in a tone of relief.
"I'm sure of it," said Mr. Manley. "But why do we waste our time talking about the tiresome fellow when there are things a thousand times more interesting to talk about? Your eyes, now—"
Mr. Flexen instructed Inspector Perkins and his men to make inquiries about the rides of Lord Loudwater and to try to learn whether any one had seen a strange car, or, indeed, a car of any kind, in the neighbourhood of the Castle about eleven o'clock on the night of the murder. Also, he could see his way to using the newspaper men to help him to discover whether there had been any entanglement known to the club gossips or the people of the neighbourhood between Lord Loudwater and a lady in London. It was not unlikely that he had talked of it to some one, for if they quarrelled so furiously he must need sympathy; and if he had not talked, the lady probably had, though it might very well be that she was not in the circle in which the Loudwaters moved in London. He had some doubt, however, that she was a London woman at all. She had shown too intimate a knowledge of Lord Loudwater's habits at Loudwater and of the Castle itself, for it was clear from William Roper's story that she had gone straight to the library window and through it, in the evident expectation of finding Lord Loudwater asleep as usual in his smoking-room. It was this doubt which prevented him from appealing to Scotland Yard for help in clearing up this particular point. He wished to make sure first that the woman did not belong to the neighbourhood. On the other hand, she might always be some one who had been a guest at the Castle.
He was about to go in search of Lady Loudwater to question her about their friends and acquaintances who might have this knowledge of the Castle and the habits of her husband, when the sleuth from the Wire and the sleuth from the Planet arrived together, in all amity and the same vexation at being prevented by this errand from spending the afternoon at the same bridge table. The sleuth of the Wire was a very solemn-looking young man, with a round, simple face. The sleuth of the Planet was a tall, dark man, with an impatient and slightly worried air, who looked uncommonly like an irritable actor-manager.
Both of them greeted Mr. Flexen with affectionate warmth, and Douglas, the tall sleuth of the Planet, at once deplored, with considerable bitterness, the fact that he had been robbed of his afternoon's bridge. Gregg, the sleuth of the Wire, preserved a gently-blinking, sympathetic silence.
Mr. Flexen at once sent for whisky, soda and cigars, and over them took his two friends into his confidence. He told them that it was very doubtful whether it was a case of murder or suicide; that the jury's verdict was not in accordance with the directions of the Coroner, but just a piece of natural, pig-headed stupidity. This produced another bitter outcry from Douglas about the loss of his afternoon. Mr. Flexen did not soothe him at all by pointing out that he was in a beautiful country on a beautiful day. Then he told them about the coming of the mysterious woman and her violent quarrel with the Lord Loudwater just about the probable time of his death. Douglas at once lost his irritated air and displayed a lively interest in the matter; Gregg listened and blinked. Mr. Flexen told them also of Hutchings, his threats, and his visit to the Castle. That was as far as his confidences went. But they were enough. He had given them the very things they wanted, and they both assured him that they would at once inform him of any discoveries they might make themselves. They left him feeling sure that he might safely leave the servants and the villagers to them and the policemen. If any one in the neighbourhood knew anything about the mysterious woman, they would probably ferret it out. What was far more important was that tomorrow's Wire and Planet would contain such an advertisement of her that any one in London or the country who knew of her relations with the dead man would learn at once the value of that knowledge.