“Oh, I see that well enough,” Wendover admitted. “But the case against other people isn’t half as strong. Ardsley’s a possible suspect. He has possession of curare; he knows the Maze intimately. . . .”
“And he’s had a squabble with Roger Shandon over some trifling fishing rights. I’m afraid even Izaak Walton would hardly have thought the matter was a sufficient ground for murder, Squire.”
Wendover could think of no reply to this on the spur of the moment, and to cover his defeat he hurried on to a fresh group of suspects.
“Now we come to the people who were actually in the Maze at the time of the murder or whom we know to have been in it immediately afterwards: Torrance, Miss Forrest, and that fellow Costock, your I.D.B. friend. I can’t see how Miss Forrest had anything to do with it. As to Costock, you know about him and I don’t.”
“Yes,” said Sir Clinton, “I know all about Costock.”
But he volunteered no further information and waited for Wendover to proceed.
“That leaves Torrance, then. It’s as plain as print that Torrance might have been the murderer. He was in the Maze at the time. He arranged to part from the girl at the entrance. He’s had plenty of time to learn the Maze while he’s been down here at Whistlefield. He might have been the person Vera Forrest heard running in the Maze just after the murder—quite easily.”
“He didn’t take an air-gun into the Maze with him,” Sir Clinton objected.
Wendover had his answer ready this time.
“No, but he might have had it hidden there beforehand.”