Wendover was about to interpose, but the inspector silenced him.
“I'll give you the evidence immediately, sir. Let me put the case first of all. She puts on her golfing-shoes, because she's going on to the sand. She takes down her golf-blazer and puts it on over her evening dress. Then she goes out by the side-door and meets the car that her husband has brought round from the garage for her. That must have been close on eleven o'clock. Nobody would miss her in a big place like the hotel.”
With unconscious art, the inspector paused again for a moment. Wendover, glancing at Sir Clinton's face in the hope of reading his thoughts, was completely baffled. The inspector resumed, still keeping to the historical present in his narrative.
“They reach the point of the road nearest to Neptune's Seat. Perhaps they turn the car then, perhaps later. In any case, she gets out and walks down towards the rock. Fleetwood, meanwhile, slips in behind the groyne and keeps in the lee of it as he moves parallel with her. That accounts for the kind of prints we saw this morning.
“She gets to the rock and meets Staveley. They talk for a while. Then she loses her temper and shoots him. Then the fat's in the fire. The Fleetwoods go back to their car and drive off to the hotel again. They don't take the car to the garage straightway. She gets out, goes round by the entrance leading to place where the guests keep their golfing togs. She takes off her golfing-shoes, strips off her blazer and hangs it up, and slips into the hotel, without being spotted.”
Wendover had listened to this confident recital with an ever-increasing uneasiness. He comforted himself, however, with the hope that the inspector would find it difficult to bring adequate proof of his various points; but he could not deny that Armadale's reconstruction manifested a higher gift of imagination than he had been expecting. It all sounded so grimly probable.
“Meanwhile,” the inspector resumed, “young Fleetwood leaves the car standing and goes into the hotel. What he was after I can't fathom—perhaps to establish some sort of alibi. In any case, he comes hurrying down the stairs at 11.35 p.m., catches his foot, takes a header, and lands at the bottom with a compound fracture of his right leg. That's the end of him for the night. They ring up Rafford, who patches him up and puts him to bed.”
Armadale halted again, and threw a superior smile towards Wendover.
“That's my case stated. I think there's enough in it to apply for a warrant against the woman as principal and young Fleetwood as accessory.”
Wendover took up the implied challenge eagerly, now that he knew the worst. This was the part for which he had cast himself, and he was anxious to play it well.