“Some people don’t seem to find it so hard as all that. But if that’s your difficulty, perhaps I could do something for you. I’ve some small influence in South Africa, and it so happens that a man out there asked me to look round for someone to fill a post. The pay’s good enough to marry on. I’ll come across to-morrow to Whistlefield in the morning and talk to you about it. My impression is that it would suit you. And it has one big advantage. It would take you both out of your old surroundings and make a clean break with all this affair, which would hang round your neck if you stayed in this country. People will talk, no matter what happens; and Miss Hawkhurst couldn’t help knowing they were talking if she stayed on here.”
He paused to light his cigar before he continued.
“And that brings me to my reason for getting you people together to-night. None of you are likely to talk; but you’d be hardly human if you didn’t think about this Whistlefield affair. And it’s on the cards that you might fall into misapprehensions over it, which might lead to difficulties. I’ve come to the conclusion that it will be better if you know all that I know myself about it; and I think that will clear the whole thing up and let you get it out of your minds. Once a puzzle’s solved, no one troubles about it any more; but even a trace of mystery will keep one worrying spasmodically and so one can’t put the matter aside for good.”
He glanced round the group and he could see that his suggestion met with the approval of them all.
“Very well. You must bear in mind, first of all, that I’m going to give you a mixture of facts and theories. I can’t guarantee that every detail will be absolutely accurate, for some of it’s guess-work on my part.”
“Go ahead,” said Wendover. “We understand that well enough.”
“One thing that most people forget when they read about a police case in the papers,” continued Sir Clinton, “is the handicap of local knowledge. On the face of it, any one of you three had a better chance than I had of getting to the bottom of the Whistlefield affair. All of you had some knowledge of the characters of the people involved; each of you at any rate knew his own part in the business: but a detective coming in from the outside sees nothing before him but a group of strangers with totally unpredictable qualities. He has all that lee-way to make up before he even starts level with you—and he hasn’t much time to pick up his information.”
“That’s true,” said Stenness, thoughtfully. “I’d never looked at it in that light. The police have a harder job than I thought.”
“There’s a countervailing advantage, of course,” Sir Clinton hastened to admit. “A detective comes to a case with no preconceived ideas about character. The actors are all strangers to him; and he has to depend on his wits and his judgment entirely. That was my position when I came into the Whistlefield case. I knew none of you personally, and I was quite free from prejudices about you.”
“Facts are more important than opinions in a case of this sort, so that really leaves a balance in your favour,” Ardsley suggested.