Sir Clinton leaned over, selected a fresh cigarette with a certain fastidiousness, and lighted it before going on with his tale.
“That was the end of his feeble little attempt to get the better of his confederate. The money in his pocket-book didn’t give him the escape he’d hoped for. All his precautions to leave no clues to his real identity played straight into the hands of Marden and Brackley.
“Marden’s immediate problem, once he’d come out of his fury, was difficult enough. I suspect that his first move was to search Foss and get the medallions out of his pockets. Then he was faced with the blood on his hands and on his handkerchief. He had his plan made almost in a moment. He went across, deliberately slipped—he was an artist in detail, evidently—smashed against the glass of one of the cases, cut his hand, and then he felt fairly secure. He wrapped up the wounds in his handkerchief—and there was the case complete to account for any stray blood anywhere on his clothes. He tried the safe, for fear Maurice was lurking inside; and then he gave the alarm.”
Sir Clinton glanced inquiringly at the Inspector, but Armadale shook his head.
“Brackley had nothing to say about all that, sir. Marden gave him no details.”
“It’s mostly guess-work,” Sir Clinton warned his audience. “All that one can say for it is that it fits the facts fairly well.”
“And is that brute in the house now?” Una Rainhill demanded. “I shan’t go to sleep if he is.”
“Two constables were detached to arrest him,” Sir Clinton assured her. “He’s not on the premises, you may count on that.”
Inspector Armadale’s face took on a wooden expression, the result of suppressing a sardonic smile.
“Well, he does manage to tell the truth and convey a wrong impression with it,” he commented inwardly.