“Dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden. Only half his mind had listened to the inspector’s words; the other half was occupied by that curious and fairly common hallucination of a previous and identical incident. The description was oddly familiar. He seemed to know it in advance. At an intense moment of the hallucination, he had a glimpsed memory of himself running, running along a road at the dead of night, running silently. He shook off the uncomfortable and absurd feeling. “Dear me! How very strange!”
The inspector was observing him narrowly.
“I suppose you cannot give us any hint that might help us, Mr. Todmorden? You know no one who bore the old lady a grudge?”
“Certainly not. She was the best and kindest of women.”
“May I ask who benefits by her death?”
“She has only one relative, a nephew, who inherits everything. He is in America. I have cabled to him, and received a reply.”
“Ah! So he’s out of it.”
“Of course, of course.”
“This business of the brooch, Mr. Todmorden—it seems strange that the murderer should have taken that, and that only. He has made no attempt on anything else. You know no one who had an interest in the article?”
“No one. Miss Hartley wore it always. I have often expostulated with her for wearing so valuable a piece of jewellery in the street. Someone might have noticed it and resolved to obtain it.”