“In one or two particulars my evidence remains incomplete.”
“Oh, in one or two particulars, eh? But generally speaking you don’t doubt his innocence?”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment.”
Harley’s words surprised me. I recognized, of course, that he might merely be bluffing the Inspector, but it was totally alien to his character to score a rhetorical success at the expense of what he knew to be the truth; and so sure was I of the accuracy of my deductions that I no longer doubted Colin Camber to be the guilty man.
“At any rate,” continued the Inspector, “he is in detention, and likely to remain there. If you are going to defend him at the Assizes, I don’t envy you your job, Mr. Harley.”
He was blatantly triumphant, so that the fact was evident enough that he had obtained some further piece of evidence which he regarded as conclusive.
“I have detained the man Ah Tsong as well,” he went on. “He was an accomplice of your innocent friend, Mr. Harley.”
“Was he really?” murmured Harley.
“Finally,” continued the Inspector, “I have only to satisfy myself regarding the person who lured Colonel Menendez out into the grounds last night, to have my case complete.”
I turned aside, unable to trust myself, but Harley remarked quite coolly: