“She may only have a suspicion of his guilt, or perhaps her wish is father to her thought. But it seems to me that by her allusion to the bicycle, and to cryptograms, she wished to arouse your mistrust of the man.”
“Still she cannot be aware that Marie told me about the peacock riddle?”
Latimer ruffled his hair in perplexity. “Oh, hang it, what is the use of speculating!” he cried crossly, and rising to stretch his big limbs. “Before we can arrive at any conclusion we must sound Miss Grison as to what she knows, or what she does not know.”
“At all events she detests Sorley and, so far as I can see, will do her best to hang him.”
“Perhaps. But it is your task to prevent such a miscarriage. Go and see her, Alan, and then tell me what you learn.”
“Very good. I shall write a note and invite myself to dinner.”
“Why to dinner?”
“I wish to see what kind of lodgers Miss Grison has, and to hear their opinion of their landlady. Much can be learned in this way. But tell me, Dick, what you have discovered.”
“Very little. Moon is still hunting for the assassin and is still at his wit’s end how to strike the true trail. The only thing of interest that I have learned is about Jotty.”
“The street-arab whom Grison befriended?”