Sir Clinton betrayed nothing in his expression, though the Inspector scrutinised his face carefully; but he added something which Flamborough had not expected.
“Final points. The date on the fragment of an envelope that I found in the drawer in Mrs. Silverdale's room was 1925. The date inside that signet-ring on her finger was 5–11–25. And there was the initial ‘B’ engraved alongside the date.”
Inspector Flamborough quite obviously failed to see the relevancy of these details. His face showed it in the most apparent way.
“I don't see what you're getting at there, sir,” he said rather shamefacedly. “These things never struck me; and even now I don't see what they've got to do with Mr. Justice.”
If he expected to gain anything by this frank confession, he was disappointed. Sir Clinton had evidently no desire to save his subordinate the trouble of thinking, and his next remark left Flamborough even deeper in bewilderment.
“Ever read anything by Dean Swift, Inspector?”
“I read Gulliver's Travels when I was a kid, sir,” Flamborough admitted, with the air of deprecating any investigation into his literary tastes.
“You might read his Journal to Stella some time. But I guess you'd find it dull. It's a reprint of his letters to Esther Johnson. He called her ‘Stella,’ and it's full of queer abbreviations and phrases like ‘Night, dear MD. Love Pdfr.’ It teems with that sort of stuff. Curious to see the human side of a man like Swift, isn't it?”
“In love with her, you mean, sir?”
“Well, it sounds like it,” Sir Clinton replied cautiously. “However, we needn't worry over Swift. Let's see if we can't do something with this case, for a change.”