“I saw Tulmin a day or two back.”

“Gad! and where is he?”

“In London. I asked him who murdered Philip Clevedon, and he replied that Thoyne did it.”

“He replied—what!”

“That Thoyne did it.”

I recounted as much as I thought proper of my interview with Tulmin. But Pepster shook his head.

“The thing’s beyond me,” he said. “It wants a lot of sorting out. But Tulmin’s evidence would go for nothing, and Grainger, if he knows anything, won’t speak. We must wait a bit yet.”

On my way up to Cartordale from the station I overtook Thoyne going in the same direction.

“I am bound for White Towers,” he said. “I am staying there with Sir Billy and his wife.”

“Do you happen to know,” I said, when our preliminary conversation languished a little, “of anyone who has a grudge against you?”