Inez’s face at once cleared and broke into a smile.
“How jolly,” she said. “Then I shan’t be afraid of him. It makes me feel fearfully inquisitive though; I can’t help imagining that he ran you in at some time in your indiscreet past.”
She laughed lightly, and Poole fell an instant victim to her charm. Mangane threw a glance of enquiry at the detective, who nodded.
“We were at Oxford together,” said Mangane.
Inez just checked herself in time from an exclamation that would have been hardly polite to the policeman.
“Better than ever,” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve met again.”
“I’m afraid it’s not much use to us,” said Mangane. “Poole insists upon remaining a policeman with a number and no old friends. I’ve no doubt he wouldn’t have let me tell about Oxford if he hadn’t known that you must be wondering why we were talking to each other. But I mustn’t stop here talking; you’ve got business, of course.”
He touched Poole’s shoulder and walked quickly out of the room. Inez made a mental note that he had gone up a step.
Poole’s interview with Inez Fratten did not reveal anything fresh. She talked about her advertisement and told him that she had not yet had any reply to it. She explained how Mr. Hessel had told her and her brother of the accident to their father in the City, and had warned them to stop him, if they could, from taking on some fresh work that he was contemplating; she did not tell him of the stormy interview that Ryland had had with her father on the same evening nor of the difficulty she had had in getting into touch with her brother again after that unfortunate occurrence; she explained how she had cross-questioned her father about his illness and how the latter had at last testily advised her to find out all about it from Sir Horace Spavage; finally, how Ryland had, at her request, gone up and interviewed Sir Horace—she was laid up with a chill and could not go herself—and had brought her back a note explaining all about the aneurism.
“I was horribly frightened about it,” she said, “but father was quite hopeless—you couldn’t turn him, once he had made up his mind to a thing. I feel pretty sure that he would have killed himself with overwork, even if it hadn’t been for this accident. That doesn’t make me any the less want to get hold of the rotter who knocked into him, and hasn’t the decency to come and say he’s sorry,” she added vindictively.