“Fill these in right away and give them to Ben,”[22] he ordered. Then when the man had gone out through the outer-hall door, he explained the interruption. “Sperling has just sent a request to speak to me. He says he has information that may be of importance. I thought, in the circumstances, it might be well to see him now.”
Ten minutes later Sperling was brought in by a deputy sheriff from the Tombs. He greeted Markham with a friendly boyish smile, and nodded pleasantly to Vance. He bowed—a bit stiffly, I thought—to Arnesson, whose presence seemed both to surprise and disconcert him. Markham motioned him to a chair, and Vance offered him a cigarette.
“I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Markham,” he began, a bit diffidently, “about a matter which may be of help to you. . . . You remember, when you were questioning me about my being in the archery-room with Robin, you wanted to know which way Mr. Drukker went when he left us. I told you I didn’t notice, except that he went out by the basement door. . . . Well, sir, I’ve had a lot of time to think lately; and I’ve naturally gone over in my mind all that happened that morning. I don’t know just how to explain it, but everything has become a lot clearer now. Certain—what you might call impressions—have come back to me. . . .”
He paused and looked down at the carpet. Then lifting his head, he went on:
“One of these impressions has to do with Mr. Drukker—and that’s why I wanted to see you. Just this afternoon I was—well, sort of pretending I was in the archery-room again, talking to Robin; and all of a sudden the picture of the rear window flashed across my mind. And I remembered that when I had glanced out of the window that morning to see how the weather was for my trip, I had seen Mr. Drukker sitting in the arbor behind the house. . . .”
“At what time was this?” Markham demanded brusquely.
“Only a few seconds before I went to catch my train.”
“Then you imply that Mr. Drukker, instead of leaving the premises, went to the arbor and remained there until you departed.”
“It looks that way, sir.” Sperling was reluctant to make the admission.
“You’re quite sure you saw him?”