“I don't mind, inspector. Meet us at Neptune's Seat at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. It'll be interesting to hear how far wrong I've gone in some of my guesses; and you can tell me that, since you've got so much out of these two precious scoundrels to-night. And now I'll drive you into Lynden Sands—save you the trudge. After that I really must get to bed.”
Chapter XVII.
The Threads in the Case
“This hasn't been a tidy case, in the strict meaning of the words,” Sir Clinton mused, as he chose a comfortable spot on Neptune's Seat and settled down on it. “It's really an omnium gatherum. It began long before we appeared on the scene; and the inspector has the facts about the earlier stages, whilst I've nothing better than guesswork.”
“What we're interested in, chiefly, is what you thought about it at different stages in the game,” Wendover pointed out. “If you start with the Peter Hay case and go on from there, you can tell us what you saw and what we missed. And at the tail end you can give us your guesses about the earlier stage. The inspector can check them from the confessions he got.”
Sir Clinton agreed with a gesture, and began without more ado. It was evident that he was by no means eager to recapitulate, and was doing so merely out of good nature.
“The Peter Hay case was crystal clear so far as one side was concerned. It required no marvellous insight to see what had happened. It wasn't by any possibility a one-man murder. At least two men must have been on the spot to overpower Peter and tie him up. They—or at least one of them—was a better-class fellow, or Peter Hay would have been in his shirt-sleeves instead of having his jacket on. And the jacket implied that he knew they were coming that evening, too. Further, the fact that they had amyl nitrite ready in their pockets is enough to prove two things. They weren't casual strangers, for they knew about his liability to cerebral congestion. And they premeditated killing him in certain circumstances. We worked out pretty definitely the course of events which led to his death, so I needn't go over that again. I suppose we were right in the main points, inspector?”
Armadale, primed with the information he had extracted from Aird, was able to confirm this.
“They used surgical bandages because they hoped to leave no marks on the skin, I suppose?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“That was the idea, Aird admitted, sir. He thought they'd succeeded, and he was surprised to find they'd made a mess of it.”
Sir Clinton smiled, apparently at the thought of Aird's discomfiture.