"Mathilda! Paula!" expostulated Joseph despairingly. "No, really! Really, my dears!"
"Oh yes, I've no doubt you both think I'm a fool!" said Valerie. Just because I don't do the things you do! But as a matter of fact I very nearly went to college, and I should have, only that it seemed the most frightful waste of time!"
"I think that was very sensible of you," remarked Maud, without any malice at all. "I daresay it's all very well for some people, but I never went to college, and look at me!"
Quite a number of those present obeyed this behest, in a fascinated kind of way. The Inspector, feeling that the command of the situation was slipping out of his grasp, cleared his throat, and said loudly: "No one, least of all the police, wants to put anything on to an innocent person; but I warn you, Miss Dean, you don't do yourself any good by refusing to speak the truth. Did you put Mr. Herriard's case down on the table?"
After this question had been relayed in a gentler form by Joseph, and Roydon had made a rather involved speech, the gist of which seemed to be that it was the height of injustice to expect nervous subjects to speak the truth, Valerie was induced to admit that she had put the case down on the table. Nobody remembered having seen it there, but that, as Mathilda delicately suggested, was hardly surprising, since everyone's attention had been fully occupied by Roydon's reading, and the exciting scene that had followed it.
The Inspector then went to look at the table in question, everybody tramping after him, and it was found to be a Chippendale piecrust table, which Sturry preferred to designate as an Incidental Table. It bore a small bowl of flowers, an ashtray, and a silver match-box, and Sturry, questioned, stated that when he had entered the drawing-room before dinner, to make sure that James, the footman, had Set it to Rights, no cigarettecase had been visible. James was equally sure that it had not been on the table when he had emptied the ashtray, so that left everyone, as Mathilda kindly pointed out, exactly where they were before this exhaustive enquiry had been inaugurated.
"No, miss, there I cannot agree with you," said the Inspector darkly.
"The fact is, anyone could have picked it up without attracting the least attention," she said.
Edgar Mottisfont took instant exception to this. "I don't see that at all!" he said. "Are you suggesting that someone tried to steal Stephen's case? Why should anyone but Stephen have picked it up? We all knew it didn't belong to us!"
Joseph said, as angrily as anyone of his mild temper could: "Edgar, do think before you speak! What - I ask you - are you trying to insinuate? What reason have you to try to stab Stephen in the back?"