“All right.”
They turned, but before they had crossed the hall,
“Tell you what,” Anthony said, “the study’d be better. Not so near the servants, you know.”
“You’re right,” Sir Arthur agreed.
The study had that queer stillness which comes to a room at one time in constant use and then suddenly deserted save for the morning activities of a servant with duster and broom. It had an air of almost supernatural lifelessness, increased, perhaps, by the fact that now everything was in its accustomed place; the same pictures on the walls; the table; the chairs; the very curtains cutting off the alcove at the far end of the room hanging in the old slightly disordered folds.
A silence fell upon both men while they found chairs and drew them up to the table, under the light.
Sir Arthur spoke first. “Out with it, now, Gethryn. You’ve excited me, you know.” He rubbed his hands. “I’ve always thought you’d do something; go one better than those damn’ fools of policemen!”
Anthony leant back in his chair. “This,” he said, “is a most unusual business. I said so at the beginning, and, by God, I say so now! You might say that I have solved the mystery. After I’ve told you, that is. And in another way, as you’ll see, it’s more of a puzzle than ever.”
Sir Arthur leant forward. “Go on, man, go on! Do you mean to say you actually know who killed John?”
“I do not.” Anthony laid his head against the back of his chair and closed his leaden, burning eyes.