"At that time?"
"I am told," said the Inspector, "that it is a matter of three months since he left the firm. Why, I do not know."
"Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you!" said the exasperated Hemingway. "What was the girl charged with?"
"It was alleged," said Grant, "that she had forged Mr. Harold Maxstoke's signature on various cheques, and cashed them; and it was proved that she had in her possession some bank-notes, of which the numbers had been taken. You would say that it was an open-and-shut case."
"Which means, I suppose, that I shouldn't have said anything of the sort. I don't think I was in Court when this Maxstoke gave his evidence. What sort of a bloke was he?"
"I have not seen him. Sergeant Bingham tells me - but," added the Inspector, with a touch of austerity, "he is a vulgar man, that one! - that he would be the man to pinch and cuddle a lassie! A droch duine, is what he called him."
"That I'll be bound he never did! I don't know what it means, nor I don't want to, but the idea of you putting words like that into poor old Bingham's mouth! The inference being that the whole affair was a plant? Well, I have heard of such things, but not often, and I'm bound to say I didn't take to the fair Beulah. Looked as if she'd murder her own grandmother for sixpence. But one of her fellow-convicts sent her to Seaton-Carew, thinking he could use her; and it looks very much to me as though he pretty soon found out he couldn't - not in the way that was meant, anyhow. Now, that's very interesting, Sandy! If you ask me, drug-peddling wasn't his only racket, not by a long chalk! He didn't want an agent for that! It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he ran a blackmailing business, by way of a side-line. That's where the tie-up between him and Hard-faced Hannah may have come in. I don't say it did, but you want to bear it in mind, as a possibility. If she didn't put the black on Lady Nest, I'll eat my hat! She's got a lot of money, too: much more than she ought to have, in these days, when honest people can't possibly have a lot of money."
"I was not hearing from the servants anything that would bear that out," observed Grant doubtfully.
"I don't suppose you were. What they had to say, by what I can make out, they might as well have kept to themselves, for all the good it's likely to do us. They've none of them been with her above two years, and most of 'em not half as long. She's a bad mistress, but that doesn't make her a criminal."
"It does not. But they think she is not a lady, for all such grand people visit her house."