“No doubt,” replied the inspector. “But Sir George Granville—is a different matter. We must consider his feelings; we must try to spare them. I hardly know what is best to be done. Obviously, the matter cannot be allowed to remain where it is, yet it is difficult to see what is the proper course of action to pursue. I think the best thing will be to wait until Gillett returns from London and leave it to him. When do you expect him back?”
“I expect him back in the morning. I wired to him that I had obtained most important information.”
“I’ll be at the station when the London express comes in in the morning. If Gillett is on board I’ll go on with him to Ashlingsea.”
In accordance with this arrangement, Inspector Murchison arrived at Ashlingsea in the morning, in the company of Detective Gillett.
If Sergeant Westaway expected praise from the representative of Scotland Yard it was not forthcoming. Detective Gillett seemed in a peevish humour. His boyish face looked tired and careworn, and his blue eyes were clouded.
“Let me have a look at this statement that you are making such a fuss about,” he said.
Long afterwards, when Sergeant Westaway had ample leisure to go over all the events in connection with the Cliff Farm case, he alighted on the conviction that the reason Detective Gillett was so offensive and abrupt in regard to Miss Maynard’s statement was that he did not like important information to reach the police while he was absent.
“It is a voluntary and signed statement by Miss Maynard, a young lady of the district, who was at Cliff Farm the night of the murder,” said the sergeant, with dignity.
“So much I know from Inspector Murchison, and also that the statement in some way implicates young what’s his name—Marsland. Let me have the document itself, Westaway.”
The sergeant took it from his desk, and placed it in Detective Gillett’s hands.