“Good Lord! Lying about?”
“It was on his table, but entirely covered with papers—I thought, purposely. I didn’t like doing it, but I felt the obvious thing was to look through those papers on Marryatt’s table. Among them was a postcard from Brotherhood, dated a week ago, thanking him for the gift of a copy of Momerie’s Immortality.”
“But, look here, the thing’s impossible! Marryatt, I mean, Marryatt isn’t the least the sort of person——”
“Yes, I know all that. I’ve thought of all that. But just look at the facts. There’s not the least doubt it was Marryatt who came into my room, yesterday afternoon, I suppose. He came in, no doubt, for the pipe-cleaner or for the Shakespeare quotation—I don’t grudge him either. Then he must have seen the Momerie on the shelf, and I suppose couldn’t help taking it; he didn’t feel safe as long as the thing was in my hands. He is, of course, just the height Carmichael mentioned; he does smoke Worker’s Army Cut; his pipes always are foul.”
“Yes, but he may have wanted the Momerie for anything.”
“Why did he never tell me he’d taken it? Look here, you’ve got to face the facts. Let me marshal them for you; you can imagine I’ve been thinking them out pretty furiously. First, Marryatt had a reason for disliking Brotherhood.”
“For disliking him, yes; but not for wanting to murder him.”
“Of course to you and me it wouldn’t seem so; we don’t know the clerical temper from the inside. After all, Marryatt has a hard time of it in any case, trying to knock a little piety out of these villagers. What must he think of the man who comes and tries to take away what beliefs they’ve got?”
“All right, go on. Of course, it’s quite impossible.”
“Next point: it was Marryatt who gave Brotherhood that Momerie book. Brotherhood, of course, took it up to London with him in the train on Monday, but is it likely that anybody would notice it particularly? The one man who knew for certain that it was in his possession was the man who had given it to him.”