The Sergeant looked at him almost sadly. "I've never known you to go against the evidence before, sir."
"What you don't see is that I haven't got all the evidence. I've got a lot, but there's a vital link which I've missed. Well, I can't do any more until those lads 'phone through the result of developing that plate."
"Of course, if it does turn out to be a print of Joseph's hand, it will be strong circumstantial evidence," conceded the Sergeant. "But not nearly strong enough, to my way of thinking, to convict him without our finding out how he could have got into Nathaniel's room to murder him. What's more, there's still that handkerchief of Roydon's."
But Hemingway was plainly uninterested in Roydon's handkerchief. While awaiting the telephone-call from the police-station, he was sought out by Valerie, who wanted to know whether she could go home. He assured her that he had not the least objection to her immediate departure, an announcement which greatly cheered her. She went off to persuade her mother to leave Lexham on the following morning, and found that that redoubtable lady had at last succeeded in cornering Stephen, and was manoeuvring for position. As she entered the drawingroom, she heard Mrs. Dean say: "I know that you understood a mother's anxiety, Stephen. I'm afraid I'm very, very jealous of my girlie's happiness and future welfare. I could not have reconciled it with my conscience to have let the engagement continue as things were. But I'm sure you're chivalrous enough to forgive a mother's natural prudence."
From the look on Stephen's face this did not seem to be very probable. Before he could answer, Valerie said: "Oh, Mummy, I do wish you'd shut up! I keep on telling you I don't want to marry Stephen! And anyway we can go home: that angelic Inspector says so."
In whatever terms Mrs. Dean might later censure her daughter's mannerless interruption, even she was compelled to realise that after this forthright speech there could be no hope of renewing the engagement. She expressed a pious wish that they would not both discover that they had made a mistake they would regret, and left the room to overcome her chagrin in private.
Valerie said that for her part she was dead sure she wouldn't regret it.
"I shan't either," said Stephen. "You're a lovely, my pet, but you'd have driven me to suicide within a month."
"Well, I thought you were pretty stinking, if you want to know," said Valerie candidly. "I expect you'll end up by marrying Mathilda."
"I feel that I owe it to you to tell you that you're quite right."