‘I know he didn’t kill him,’ he said quietly.
Martin grunted.
‘I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there,’ he said. ‘Gosh! I’ll never forgive myself for being such a fool!’
Prenderby was inclined to agree with him, but Abbershaw stuck to his own opinion, and the expression on his face as they drove silently back to Town was very serious and, somehow, afraid.
CHAPTER XXIX
The Last Chapter
In the six weeks which followed the unsatisfactory trip to the Essex Marshes, Abbershaw and Meggie were fully occupied preparing for their wedding, which they had decided should take place as soon as was possible.
Prenderby seemed inclined to forget the Black Dudley affair altogether: his own marriage to Jeanne was not far distant and provided him with a more interesting topic of thought and conversation, and Martin Watt had gone back to his old haunts in the City and the West End.
Wyatt was in his flat overlooking St James’s, apparently immersed as ever in the obscurities of his reading.
But Abbershaw had not forgotten Colonel Coombe.
He had not put the whole matter before his friend, Inspector Deadwood of Scotland Yard, for a reason which he was unable to express in definite words, even to himself.