"No; I had no plans at all. I thought of the boat afterwards only because I'm used to boats, and I thought you'd think of them last. I was going to try to escape somehow, but I didn't think of it until I saw the pepper-pot as I was going out. It was the only way I could think of, you see. Bert had my gun."
"Your gun? Was that your gun in his pocket?"
"Yes; that's what I went to the queue for."
But Grant did not want statements of that sort tonight. "Don't talk!" he said, and rang for the boy. "I'll take any statement you want to give me tomorrow. If there's any-thing I can do for you tonight, tell the boy and he'll let me know."
"There isn't anything, thank you. You've been awfully decent — far more decent than I thought the police ever were — to criminals."
That was so obviously an English version of Raoul's gentil that Grant smiled involuntarily, and the shadow of a smile was reflected on Lamont's swarthy face. "I say," he said, "I've thought a lot about Bert, and it's my belief that, if it wasn't a mistake, it was a woman."
"Thanks for the tip," said Grant dryly, and left him to the tender mercies of the grinning youth. But as he made his way downstairs he was wondering why he had thought of Mrs. Ratcliffe.
14 — The Statement
It was not at Carninnish, however, that Lamont gave his statement to the inspector, but on the journey south. Dr. Anderson, on hearing what was mooted, pleaded for one more day's rest for his patient. "You don't want the man to have inflammation of the brain, do you?"
Grant, who was dying to have a statement down in black and white, explained that the man himself was anxious to give one, and that giving it would surely harm him less than having it simmering in his brain.