“How did you find all this out?” demanded the Colonel. “I should doubt whether anyone except, I suppose, Drybeck knows anything about Ainstable's affairs. And, good God, he wouldn't talk about a client's private business!”
“Properly speaking,” replied Hemingway, “it was Harbottle who discovered it. And Mr. Drybeck wasn't the only person who knew there'd been a settlement. Sampson Warrenby knew it. And unless I'm much mistaken, Mr. Haswell knows it too—or at any rate suspects it.”
“I should have said that Warrenby was the last man in the world Ainstable would have confided in! But go on!”
“I'm dead sure he didn't confide to him, sir. Warrenby found it out. There's a copy of a letter he wrote to the solicitors of the trustees, saying that he had a client that was interested in Mr. Ainstable's gravel-pit, and that he was informed they were the proper people for him to apply to. And there's an answer from this firm, all very plain, stating that although any money would have to be paid to them, acting for the trustees, to be apportioned as between the tenant-for-life and the trust funds, all such contracts were a matter for Mr. Ainstable only. Now, on the face of it, it looks as if Warrenby must have approached Mr. Drybeck, knowing him to be Mr. Ainstable's solicitor, and been passed on by him to this London firm.”
“I suppose so,” said the Colonel, staring at him.
“Yes, sir, only I've met a lot of false faces in my time, and it's my belief this is one of them. I don't doubt Warrenby got the information he wanted out of Mr. Drybeck, but I should say he didn't appear in the matter himself. In fact, I don't know how he managed it, which is probably just as well, because I've got a strong notion that if ever I got to the bottom of the methods the late lamented employed to find out things about his neighbours I'd very likely get up a subscription for the man who did him in, instead of arresting him.”
“I don't follow you,” the Colonel said. “Why should Warrenby not appear in the matter? It seems to me that if he had a client—”
“Yes, sir, but another strong notion I have is that he hadn't got any such thing. Seems highly unnatural to me that Mr. Drybeck should never have mentioned the matter to the Squire, and that he didn't I'm quite satisfied. It came as news to Mr. Ainstable—and no such very pleasant news either.”
The Colonel stirred restlessly. “What makes you think there was no client?”
“The fact that we don't hear anything more about him, sir. Having gone to the trouble of finding out who was the right person to apply to, Warrenby didn't apply to him.”