Tinkler brought down a heavy fist with a bang on his desk. 'Then I'm blest, Mr Cargrim, sir, if I can understand what she meant by asking me to hold my tongue.'
'Ah, Mr Inspector, the good lady is one of those rare spirits who "do good by stealth and blush to find it fame."'
'Seems a kind of silly to go on like that, sir!'
'We are not all rare spirits, Tinkler.'
'I don't know what the world would be if we were, Mr Cargrim, sir. But Miss Whichello seemed so anxious that I should hold my tongue about the visit and the burial that I can't make out why she talked about them to you or to anybody.'
'I cannot myself fathom her reason for such unnecessary secrecy, Mr Inspector; unless it is that she wishes the murderer to be discovered.'
'Well, she can't spot him,' said Tinkler, emphatically, 'for all she knows about Jentham is thirty years old.'
Cargrim could scarcely suppress a start at this unexpected information. So Miss Whichello did know something about the dead man after all; and doubtless her connection with Jentham had to do with the secret of the bishop. Cargrim felt that he was on the eve of an important discovery; for Tinkler, thinking that Miss Whichello had made a confidant of the chaplain, babbled on innocently, without guessing that his attentive listener was making a base use of him. The shrug of the shoulders with which Cargrim commented on his last remark made Tinkler talk further.
'Besides!' said he, expansively, 'what does Miss Whichello know? Only that the man was a violinist thirty years ago, and that he called himself Amaru. Those details don't throw any light on the murder, Mr Cargrim, sir.'
The chaplain mentally noted the former name and former profession of Jentham and shook his head. 'Such information is utterly useless,' he said gravely, 'and the people with whom Amaru alias Jentham associated then are doubtless all dead by this time.'