The Inspector declined refreshment, but turned an interested eye upon Vicky. "Now, is this going to be on the level?" he asked. "Because if it's just one of your variety turns, miss, there's nothing doing. I'm a busy man."
"Oh, it's absolutely on the level!" Vicky assured him. "And if you're busy trying to convict Mr. Steel, just because of what Miss White said, it's the most utter waste of time. I don't say she didn't ask him to tea on Sunday, because she probably did, but she talks so much that I don't suppose he was paying the least attention to her. No one ever does."
The Inspector made no reply to this, but as Vicky's was precisely the explanation which Steel had already given him, her words carried more weight than even she had expected.
He listened to Alan White's story, as recounted by Hugh, in attentive silence, remarking at the end that he was sorry he had never had the privilege of meeting Wally Carter. He did not seem inclined to comment further upon the story, so Vicky, who felt that it had fallen flat, said hopefully that it was probably the clue to the crime. But even this failed to draw the Inspector. He shook his head, and said that he wouldn't be at all surprised if she were right.
To his Sergeant, twenty minutes later, he said that the case had now reached a highly promising stage. Wake scratched his chin, and said: "It beats me why you should say that, sir. What I was thinking myself is that whichever way we turn there doesn't seem to be anything to grasp hold of. You keep thinking you're on to something, and though you can't say definitely that you're not, yet it don't seem to lead far enough, if you take my meaning."
"That's what I like about it," replied Hemingway cheerfully. "In my experience, once a case gets so tangled up that it's like the Hampton Court maze, it's a very good sign. Something's going to break. Now, I've just discovered two things which don't seem to me to help much, but I've got a very open kind of mind, and I'm prepared to find that they're a lot more important than I think. We've got to add Mr. Silent Steel to the list of suspects, my lad."
"How's that?" inquired the Sergeant. "Not but what we always have had an eye on him, haven't we?"
"We'll have two eyes on him now, because according to Miss White, that story of his about not knowing that Carter was going to the Dower House on Sunday won't hold water. It transpires that she asked him to tea when they came out of church, and her father put him off by saying he'd got Carter coming."
"Is that so!" exclaimed the Sergeant. "That doesn't look too good, I will say!"
"It doesn't, but it doesn't look too bad either. Steel's explanation being that Miss White was talking nineteen to the dozen all the time he was trying to have a word with a friend of his, and he didn't pay much heed to her. I'm bound to say I don't altogether disbelieve him."