Sir Clinton glanced over the next few entries.
“So I see, Inspector. Now it seems her dancing isn't so good as he used to think it was.”
“Any stick to beat a dog with,” the Inspector surmised.
“Now they seem to have got the length of a distinct tiff, and he rushes at once to jot down a few bright thoughts on jealousy with a quotation from Mr. Wells in support of his thesis. It appears that this ‘entanglement,’ as he calls it, is cramping his individuality and preventing the full self-expression of his complex nature. I can't imagine how we got along without that word ‘self-expression’ when we were young. It's a godsend. I trust the inventor got a medal.”
“The next entry's rather important, sir,” Flamborough warned him.
“Ah! Here we are. We come to action for a change instead of all this wash of talk. This is the final burst-up, eh? H'm!”
He read over the entry thoughtfully.
“Well, the Hailsham girl seems to have astonished him when it came to the pinch. Even deducting everything for his way of looking at things, she must have been fairly furious. And Yvonne Silverdale's name seems to have entered pretty deeply into the discussion. ‘She warned me she knew more than I thought she did; and that she'd make me pay for what I was doing.’ And again: ‘She said she'd stick at nothing to get even with me.’ It seems to have been rather a vulgar scene, altogether. ‘She wasn't going to be thrown over for that woman without having her turn when it came.’ You know, Inspector, it sounds a bit vindictive, even when it's filtered through him into his journal. The woman scorned, and hell let loose, eh? I'm not greatly taken with the picture of Miss Hailsham.”
“A bit of a virago,” the Inspector agreed. “What I was wondering when I read that stuff was whether she'd keep up to that standard permanently or whether this was just a flash in the pan. If she's the kind that treasures grievances. . . .”
“She might be an important piece in the jigsaw, you mean? In any case, I suppose we'll have to get her sized up somehow, since she plays a part in the story.”