Had we both been seated comfortably at the breakfast table, he might have questioned me as to a second helping of bacon in just such a casual tone of voice. Astonishing and imperturbable, could nothing shake him? Did he see nothing incongruous or bizarre in my standing there on the darkened landing at dead of night while he made his secret search on the floor by Stella’s bed?
“What on earth are you doing and how did you know I was there?” I asked in a shaking voice that I failed to control.
“Hush! Speak more quietly, man! Did you think you heard a door shut? Come along in and close the door.”
Since, I have often thought, and I must confess with not a little shame, that there could have been no better illustration of a strong man’s personality dominating that of a man less strong. There was I with my suspicions all aroused—suspicion backed by evidence and based on solid reasoning—suspicions, which in spite of my instinctive liking for the doctor, would not lie dormant and disregarded—yet he only had to whisper, “Come along in and close the door,” and I go to him in a darkened room without thought of harm or danger. One minute I write him down a murderer, the next, unhesitating, I place my life in his hands. I find him creeping furtively about the house at night with an electric torch, and it is he who quietly asks me what I am doing and what it is that I want.
In the dark we stood with straining ears for a little time and then he opened the door and listened again at the top of the stairs. I remained alone in the room, still troubled as to what line of action I ought to take. Should I show him what I had found and tax him with having put it where I found it, or let matters run their course and see what happened next? I could just make out the outline of Stella’s bed. Dark deeds are done in Dalehouse at night. I still held the card in my hand.
He came back to me, shutting the door carefully behind him. He switched on his flashlight again, taking care to keep the beam directed away from the window, in which the blind was undrawn. “What is it, Jeffcock? Is anything the matter? What made you come up here?” he whispered quickly.
“I heard you moving about. What were you looking for?”
He hesitated.
“Look here, Jeffcock, I really am most awfully sorry, but I can’t tell you. I was merely following up a little idea of my own—doing a little private detective work.”
I believed him implicitly and at once. So much for my labors in the drawing-room! I showed him the revised edition of the notice. So much for my voluminous notes and my absurd little table of final reckoning!