"And that, I am afraid, is exactly what I can't do, my friend," replied Cleek serenely, with a crooked smile. "Simply because, according to your somewhat one-eyed and one-sided English law, every one is a suspect until he is proved innocent. You, your sister, your stepmother, even your fiancée—who, I suppose, is spending the night here with her cousin Miss Dowd, under the present circumstances as my orders were issued a little earlier in the evening—every member of this household comes under the unwilling stigma of a possible perpetrator of this crime."
"Damn it!— I say—how dare you——"
"We policemen dare everything, Mr. Duggan, because that is our duty, you know," he responded smoothly. "And, besides, there's one thing more. Someone here has an air-pistol, and the owner of that has got to be found. I've an inkling, supplemented by a few words dropped by your sister, but we'll let that pass. Only, the owner of the air-gun is not going to escape this house to-night. That's all, I fancy. Sergeant, good-night. Or, rather, good morning. You'll call me if necessary, won't you? I shall be in the very next room. And— Mr. Duggan, if you don't happen to have that whisky handy, you needn't bother. I've a flask in my pocket."
CHAPTER X
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE?
There was no call during the long watches of the night, no untoward happenings of any sort. Cleek, sleeping with one eye open, rose now and again and crept silent-footed out into the passage, doing a little bit of listening in upon his own account. But nothing of any moment happened. And so when at length the house was astir, and the sound of servants with their brushes and brooms began to make their usual early-morning clamour, he shook himself awake, got to his feet, and went off into the bathroom, where Ross Duggan's safety-razor worked wonders with his over-night beard, and a wash under the cold-water tap still more.
Returning, he stopped at the door of that chamber of tragedy where the one-time master of all this vast inheritance of stone and moorland lay, Death wiping from his aged face every line and leaving it as smooth as a child's.
"I want to have a little poke round for myself," he told the constable on duty outside the door, who instantly let him in, as became a representative of Scotland Yard. "You might send someone up to the Inn of the Three Fishers with this note, and see that it gets delivered immediately into the hands of a chap named Dollops. It's important."
"Very good, sir."