“It has probably got there since the murder,” Kean reminded him. “It’s hardly likely the police would have missed it. They must have gone over this ground pretty carefully. The pressmen have been down here already, remember. One of them may have dropped it.”
He slipped the pen into his pocket as he spoke.
After Kean had climbed into the car Fayre stood for a moment, his hand on the door.
“I’m not going to make a nuisance of myself, Edward,” he said. “But, if there’s anything I can do, you might put me onto it. I’m sorry for those children and would give a great deal to help them. Also, I’m at a loose end and I’ve no ties. If there’s any special line you want followed I could do it more tactfully, possibly, and unobtrusively than one of these fellows from an agency.”
Kean nodded.
“I’ll remember. Don’t underrate the private detective, though. It’s not such an easy job as you seem to think. Meanwhile, if you can keep Sybil from worrying herself silly I should take it as a kindness. I’ve got to go back to town to-night and I should like to leave her in good hands. Yours are the best I know, old chap.”
The car slid away, leaving Fayre, for all his even temper, a little ruffled. His offer, not a very practical one, perhaps, but none the less heartfelt for that, had been quietly, but firmly, put aside. The lump of sugar, skilfully administered after the pill, did not deceive him and he was human enough to feel snubbed. There was something significant, too, in the way in which Kean had quietly pocketed his find in the garden. Evidently he had no intention of taking his old friend into his confidence with regard to his conduct of the case. Fayre, who had meant to ask him his intentions should Leslie be committed for trial, decided to leave all such negotiations to Lady Kean. They had both hoped that he might be persuaded to undertake the defence and he felt now that she was the only person who could be counted on to influence him, should the occasion arise. He returned to the farm in as near a bad temper as was possible to one of his temperament and thoroughly out of patience with the legal mind.
“If Edward takes this line, blessed if I don’t do a bit of investigating on my own,” he told himself doggedly. “He always was a hide-bound beggar. Come to that, why couldn’t he let Cynthia go and see Miss Allen? She’d probably get more out of her, as woman to woman, than he will. Another of his absurd points of legal etiquette.”
Meanwhile the object of his wrath was reviewing the situation as the motor bore him swiftly on his way to Greycross. If Cynthia had seen his face now she would have been robbed of even the faint hope that had been kindled by his visit to the farm. But he felt no doubt as to Leslie’s innocence. His manner, all that he knew of him in the past, the complete lack of motive, even the very weakness of his alibi, all served to exonerate him; but, as Kean knew from long experience, only the lack of motive would weigh with a jury. He had guessed that part of Leslie’s time on the Monday had been passed in the company of Cynthia Bell and had counted on her to produce a sufficient alibi, expecting to be confronted with nothing more serious than the boy’s chivalrous desire to shield her. He had been far more concerned than he had chosen to admit, even to Fayre, when he found that Cynthia’s evidence would be worse than useless. He was so deep in thought that he was taken unawares when the motor drew up in front of Miss Allen’s pleasant, picturesque old house.
A bulldog ambled out onto the drive to greet him and a couple of terriers sniffed at his legs as he waited in the comfortable drawing-room into which the maid had shown him. The pale March sunlight filtered in through the long French windows, but the blinds had been drawn in the ante-room through which he had passed and he knew that probably all the other windows of the house were shrouded. An ominous quiet seemed to brood over the whole place and he found himself moved for the first time by the realization of Mrs. Draycott’s death. Until now he had been too occupied with the consequences of the murder to give much thought to the woman who had, after all, been his fellow-guest at Staveley for over a week. Now, in her sister’s house, the sense of tragedy deepened and, when Miss Allen found him standing by the window, staring with sombre eyes into the sunlit garden, she was struck by the weariness of his pose and the almost haggard pallor of his face.