Armadale thought he detected a tacit reproof for his exclamation at the time the discovery was made.
“You covered up that word or two of mine very neatly, sir,” he admitted frankly. “I was startled when I saw that spot of blood on the wall, and I nearly blurted it out. Silly of me to do it, I suppose. But you managed to smother it up with that bungling with your lamp before I’d given anything away. I’d no notion you wanted to keep the thing quiet.”
“No harm done,” Sir Clinton reassured him. “But be careful another time. One needn’t show all one’s cards.”
“You certainly don’t,” Armadale retorted.
“Well, you have all the facts, Inspector. What more do you expect?”
Armadale thought it best to change the subject.
“That water that we saw down there,” he went on. “That never leaked in through the roof. The masonry overhead was as tight as a drum and there wasn’t a sign of drip-marks anywhere. That water came from somewhere else. Some one had been washing up in that cellar. There had been more blood there—lots of it; and they’d washed it away. That tiny patch was a bit they’d overlooked. Isn’t that so, sir?”
“That’s an inference and not a fact, Inspector,” Sir Clinton pointed out, with an expression approaching to a grin on his face. “I don’t say you’re wrong. In fact, I’m sure you’re right. But only facts are supposed to go into the common stock, remember.”
“Very good, sir.”
But the Inspector had something in reserve.