Helen sat down suddenly on the sofa. "I can't stand this!" she said in a choking voice. "There's no reason why you should come and badger me! Simply because I happened to know Ernie Fletcher -'
"Not entirely," he said. "Are not these yours, Mrs. North?"
She looked at the slips of paper which he had taken from his pocket-book. The colour rushed into her face, but some of her strained rigidity left her. "Yes. They're mine," she answered. "What of it?"
"They call for some kind of explanation, as I think you'll agree," he said. "Did you owe these various sums of money to Mr. Fletcher?"
"No. That is, not in the way you seem to think. He bought up those debts, to get me out of a - a hole, and I was - I was repaying him bit by bit." She glanced up fleetingly, and added, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers: "I did not wish my - my husband to know. He - I - oh, this is impossible!"
"I quite appreciate your reluctance to discuss your affairs, Mrs. North. It may make it easier for you to be frank with me if you can bring yourself to believe that except in so far as they may relate to the case I am at work on I have no interest in them, and certainly no desire to create any unnecessary - er - scandal."
"There's nothing to make a scandal about!" she said. "Mr. Fletcher was just a friend. The whole arrangement was perfectly amicable. I don't know what you are imagining, but -'
"You can put an end to any imaginings of mine by being open with me, Mrs. North. I have told you that I appreciate your point of view, but you must see that the discovery of these notes of yours in Ernest Fletcher's safe is a circumstance which must be fully inquired into. If you can satisfy me that you did not visit Greystones last night I shall have no further need to worry you with interrogations which you must naturally find unpleasant. But if you can bring no proof forward in support of your denial, and persist in refusing to let me compare your shoes with the footprints we have found in the garden at Greystones, I can have no alternative to pursuing my inquiries further. In which event, I fear there will be little hope of your evading the sort of publicity you must wish to avoid."
Sally got up from her seat by the table, and walked forward. "That," she said, "sounds remarkably like a threat, Superintendent."
"I expect it does," he agreed equably. "It isn't, though. I am only trying to point out to your sister that her wisest course is to be entirely frank with me. If I have to question her servants as to her whereabouts last night -'