“I have added on a separate sheet of paper a few notes I gathered in the course of conversation with Miss Maynard. The most important of them deals with the fact that young Marsland was a captain in the Army, and that Lumsden was under his command in France.”
Gillett began with an air of official weariness to read the document Westaway had handed to him, but before he had read far the abstraction vanished from his face, and was replaced by keen professional interest. He read it closely and carefully, and then he produced his pocket-book and stowed it away.
“Westaway,” he said, “this is a somewhat important contribution to the case.” He paused for a moment and then turned sharply on Inspector Murchison. “I think you should have told me, Murchison, how damaging a piece of evidence this is against young Marsland.”
“Not so damaging,” said the inspector, in defence. “You see, young Marsland is Sir George Granville’s nephew——”
“So you told me half a dozen times in the train,” said Gillett, “and as I knew it before I wasn’t much impressed with the information. What I say is that this statement places Marsland in a very awkward position. He has been deceiving us from first to last.”
“I admit it is very thoughtless—very foolish of him,” replied the inspector. “But surely, Gillett, you don’t think this young gentleman had anything to do with the murder?”
“I am not going to be so foolish as to say that it could not possibly be him who did it. What does he mean by hiding from us the fact that Lumsden was under his command in France, and that on the night of the murder he met this girl Maynard at the farm. He seems to be a young gentleman who keeps back a great deal that the police ought to know. And I think you will admit, Murchison, that in that respect he is behaving like a very guilty man.”
“But there may be other explanations which will place his conduct in a reasonable light—reasonable but foolish,” said the inspector, with an earnest disregard for the way in which these words contradicted each other. “Sir George Granville himself told me his nephew was an officer in the Army, but on account of his nervous breakdown the Army was never mentioned in his presence. And as for keeping Miss Maynard’s name out of his statement after she had asked him to do so—why it seems to me the sort of thing that any young man would do for a pretty girl.”
“Especially if it played into his hands. If Marsland committed the crime, he must have jumped at the chance offered him by Miss Maynard to keep silence about her presence at the farm, because that left him a free hand in the statement he made to Westaway. He had no need to be careful about any part of his statement, because he had not to harmonize any of it with what she knew about his presence there.”
“And what are you going to do about her statement?” asked the inspector. “You will confront Marsland with it?”