I pulled out my pocket-book and took out the scrap of paper which Margery had found pinned to the pillow in her father's bedroom. "Do you know what that means?" I asked, watching Wardrop's face. "That was found in Mr. Fleming's room two days after he left home. A similar scrap was found in Miss Jane Maitland's room when she disappeared. When Fleming was murdered, he was writing a letter; he said: 'The figures have followed me here.' When we know what those figures mean, Wardrop, we know why he was killed and who did it."
He shook his head hopelessly.
"I do not know," he said, and I believed him. He had got up and taken his hat, but I stopped him inside the door.
"You can help this thing in two ways," I told him. "I am going to give you something to do: you will have less time to be morbid. Find out, if you can, all about Fleming's private life in the last dozen years, especially the last three. See if there are any women mixed up in it, and try to find out something about this eleven twenty-two."
"Eleven twenty-two," he repeated, but I had not missed his change of expression when I said women.
"Also," I went on, "I want you to tell me who was with you the night you tried to break into the house at Bellwood."
He was taken completely by surprise: when he had gathered himself together his perplexity was overdone.
"With me!" he repeated. "I was alone, of course."
"I mean—the woman at the gate."
He lost his composure altogether then. I put my back against the door and waited for him to get himself in hand.