“But you mean that the immediate thing is to go fully into these new aspects of the case?”
“Quite so. Do that, and report progress. And remember to keep your eyes wide open for anything that may turn up. We must trust largely to luck.”
As Inspector Blaikie left Superintendent Wilson’s room, he was in a curiously divided state of mind. At one moment he still said to himself that all his good labour could not have been wasted, and that Walter Brooklyn must really be guilty after all. The next he found himself assuming, with greater assurance, that Winter was the murderer. He was one of those men who can only keep their minds open by entertaining two contrary opinions at the same time. He shook his head over what seemed to him the weakness of his superior in letting Walter Brooklyn go without arresting some one else.
Meanwhile, in the lounge at Liskeard House, Joan and Ellery were sitting very close to each other on a sofa making their plans for the discovery of the criminal.
“How had we better begin?” he asked, running his hand despairingly through his hair.
“I can see only one way,” Joan replied. “We have nothing to go upon—nothing, I mean, that would make us suspect any particular person. So the only thing to do is to suspect everybody—to find out exactly where everybody was when the crime was committed, and what they were doing that evening.”
“That’s something of an undertaking.”
“I don’t mean all the world. I mean everybody who was, or was likely to have been, in this house. Of course, it may have been some one quite different; but I think that’s the best way to start. And we mustn’t rule out anybody—even ourselves—however sure we are they had nothing to do with it. Even if that doesn’t find the criminal, it may help us to light on a clue.”
“But it is still a tall order. We don’t even know at what time the murders were committed.”
“Isn’t that a good point to begin upon? Let me see. When were George and John last seen alive?”