“You yourself didn’t waste much worry over him, it seemed to me. I thought at the time that you were taking it as a practical joke, somehow.”
“A very practical joke,” Sir Clinton said, but he kept every tinge of expression out of his voice when he made the comment.
“Now we can go on to the identity of Hackleton’s agent,” Wendover resumed. “You say it was some one who knew the Shandons by sight. It must have been someone who had leave to come and go at will through the Whistlefield grounds, or else someone who landed on the river-bank. That limits things down a good deal. Roger Shandon didn’t encourage strangers to roam about his place. The gardeners had orders to turn out anyone who ventured in, unless they were going up to the house on business. No stranger or neighbour—bar Costock—was on the premises so far as is known. I came across one of the gardeners and he told me that.”
Sir Clinton had no hesitation in confirming this.
“That agrees with all my men have been able to make out.”
“Then,” Wendover proceeded, “we’re limited down to the people at the house, the staff of the place, and Costock.”
“Go on,” Sir Clinton encouraged him.
Wendover pulled a notebook from his pocket and consulted some figures which he had jotted down at the time he heard the original evidence.
“If you take the facts as we know them,” he went on, “it’s clear that Neville Shandon could not have reached the Maze before 3.37 p.m.; and the second murder was over before 4.5 p.m. As a matter of fact, the times really allow less margin than that, for Neville’s body was found at 3.52 p.m. and both were probably dead by that time.”
“I think that’s quite demonstrable on Torrance’s evidence,” Sir Clinton admitted.