“After dinner, I thought I’d go down and have a look at the Maze,” Ernest continued. “I hadn’t been there, you know, since the affair happened; and I thought I might as well go down and look round the place. I wish I’d never had the idea. Such a time I’ve had.”
His eyeglasses slipped askew on his nose and he laboriously set them right before continuing.
“Damn these things! I must get a new pair. They’re always dropping off.”
“Yes?” Sir Clinton repeated, patiently. All his levity had vanished, Wendover noticed, now that he had come to real business.
“After lunch I thought I’d go down to the Maze; but it seemed a lot of trouble, going all that distance; and I very nearly gave up the idea. I wish I had. But then I thought of the push-bike I keep in the garage. It would be easy enough to pedal down on it. So I got it out and went off by the road that leads to the East Gate.”
He put out his hand tentatively towards the tumbler, but drew it back again at the sight of Sir Clinton’s frown. He looked like an overgrown baby caught in the act of mischief.
“Yes?” Sir Clinton repeated once more.
“I went into the Maze, you know, never thinking that anything could possibly happen there. I never dreamed of anything happening, you understand? And I walked through it to Helen’s Bower—the place where my brother Roger was murdered, you remember? And when I got there I sat down. I’d come a good way, you see. And I felt that I’d like to sit down.”
“Did you see anyone in or near the Maze up to that moment?” asked Sir Clinton.
Ernest pondered for a moment or two. His trepidation, far from brightening him, seemed to have made him look duller than ever.