“This may as well go with the other exhibit,” he said. “Anyhow, we know now that it was lost before, and not after, the murder.”
Kean dropped it into the drawer of his writing-table and turned the key.
“It would be interesting to know how much that fellow, Gregg, really knows of Mrs. Draycott’s past,” he said slowly.
“Whatever it is, he’s made up his mind not to speak.”
Kean stood rocking backward and forward on his heels, lost in thought. Fayre watched him in amazement. Half an hour ago he had been a broken man. Not only had he pulled himself together by sheer force of will, but he was now giving his whole mind to the matter in hand with a lack of effort that seemed almost superhuman.
“Gregg ought to be get-at-able,” he said at last. “His treatment of you was nothing but a display of bad temper. If he’s innocent it ought to be possible to convince him of the folly of the line he’s taking. If he’s guilty, the only course will be to put the matter in the hands of the police. My own impression is that he’s shielding some one. Miss Allen said that this man Baxter, Mrs. Draycott’s first husband, was dead. She also went so far as to say that he was the one person she could think of connected with her sister’s past who would have been capable of killing her. Have we any proof that the fellow is dead?”
“Gregg told me that he had died in his arms. We haven’t followed the matter up, if that’s what you mean.”
“A statement of that sort, coming from Gregg, is of no value to us. Get Grey to look the thing up, will you?”
“It’s an idea!” exclaimed Fayre. “I wonder we never thought of it! Baxter was Gregg’s friend and Gregg hated Mrs. Draycott on his account. He’d certainly shield him if the necessity arose. And Baxter was a drunkard and half demented, at that, if the accounts be true. There may be something in it.”
Kean made a gesture of impatience.