“No: only I had a special reason for asking. Well, Miss Rendall-Smith, I’ll do my best, and if I want any more information I suppose I can come over and see you. Are you on the telephone?”
“Yes; it’s Binver 35. Thank you so much, Mr. Reeves; I shall expect great things of you,” and he showed her out, still smiling encouragement.
“That’s a damned fine woman,” he said to himself as he shut the door after her.
Chapter XVII.
By which Train?
He met Marryatt on his way upstairs—Marryatt looking pained, as he always did when bad news went round.
“I must congratulate you on your driving, Reeves. It’s all over the Club. But when I think of that poor fellow Davenant—I wonder now, do you think perhaps the jury will find Davenant was insane? Why do we always assume it’s a madman’s act to take one’s own life, when it’s surely a far more desperate thing to take anybody else’s? Did you think, from what you saw of Davenant, that he was in mental health?”
“My dear Marryatt,” said Reeves, “you’re jumping to conclusions again. The police have arrested Davenant, because his movements since the time of the murder have been suspicious, and he has got to account for them. But there isn’t any positive case against him as far as I know.”
“I’m afraid the facts are only too clear,” said Marryatt, shaking his head. “A man doesn’t conceal himself so carefully unless there’s a guilty conscience behind it. But I still ask myself, was it a sane man’s act?”
Reeves was a little disappointed to find the assumption of Davenant’s guilt so universal. People, he felt, were confoundedly illogical. He went to look for Carmichael, in the hope that he might have some new illuminating theories, but Gordon discouraged him.
“Carmichael says he’s sick of the whole thing, and he’s going back to golf. He speaks quite vindictively of Davenant, and really, I think, wants to see him hanged for not having been Brotherhood after all. It’s an odd thing, human nature.”