“What do you think?” asked Tab quietly.
“I am not putting my thoughts into words,” said the Inspector, “and I tell you honestly, Tab, that I’d rather have that confession of Lander’s—wild and incoherent as it is—than I’d have Lander himself.”
Dawn was breaking, and Ursula had come down to make them coffee, a silent but absorbed listener.
“It is perfectly certain that Lander came here,” said Carver. “He destroyed the telephone connection, he made an entrance by the window in the sitting-room, and he went upstairs. You heard nothing, Miss Ardfern?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I am not a very light sleeper, but I am sure if there had been any kind of struggle outside my door, I should have heard.”
“It all depends on who controlled the struggle,” said Carver drily. “My own belief is—however, that is nothing to do with the matter. There is the fact that Lander’s hat was found in the roadway, Lander came here, his car marks are distinguishable, and that Lander himself has gone. Turner heard nothing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “That isn’t remarkable; he sleeps at the back of the house, in a room opening from the kitchen. Does the confession tell you much?”
“A whole lot,” said Carver emphatically, “and with Tab’s explanation as to how the key was put back on the table, the thing is as clear as daylight. It seems that Lander has for years been planning to get his uncle’s money, and his scheme was hurried when he learnt—probably from the old man’s lips when he was staying with him—that Trasmere intended leaving his money away from the family. Whilst Rex Lander was a guest at Mayfield, he must have taken the revolver which was undoubtedly Trasmere’s property, and I have an idea that he took something else.”
“I can tell you what it was,” said Ursula quietly. “He took away with him some Mayfield notepaper.”
Tab looked at her in astonishment.