“It was there right enough,” he remarked. “I saw it. A letter about steel shipments and the dockers’ strike, wasn’t it? As there seemed nothing to it, I left it with the other papers for Jeekes, the secretary chap. But what evidence is there that this was blackmail?”
“This,” said Robin, and showed the detective the sheet of blue paper with its series of slits. “Manderton,” he said, “these letters written on this blue paper were in code, I feel sure. Why should not this be the key? You see it bears a date—‘Nov. 25.’ May it not refer to that letter? I found it by Parrish’s body on the carpet in the library. I would have given it to you at Harkings, but I shoved it in my pocket and forgot all about it until I was in the train coming up to town this morning.”
Mr. Manderton took the sheet of paper, turned it over, and held it up to the light. Then, without comment, he put it away in the pocket of his jacket.
“If Parrish killed himself,” Robin went on earnestly, “that letter drove him to it. If, on the other hand, he was murdered, may not that letter have contained a warning?”
“I should prefer to suspend judgment until we’ve seen the letter, Mr. Greve,” said the detective bluntly. “We must get it from Jeekes. In the meantime, what makes you think that the murderer (to follow up your theory) was conversant with the lay of the land at Harkings?”
“Because,” answered Robin, “the murderer left no tracks on the grass or flower-beds. He stuck to the hard gravel path throughout. That path, which runs from the drive through the rosery to the gravel path round the house just under the library window, is precious hard to find in the dark, especially where it leaves the drive, as at the outset it is a mere thread between the rhododendron bushes. And, as I know from experience, unless you are acquainted with the turns in the path, it is very easy to get off it in the dark, especially in the rosery, and go blundering on to the flower-beds. And I’ll tell you something else about the murderer. He—or she—was of small stature—not much above five foot six in height. The upward diagonal course of the bullet through Parrish’s heart shows that ...”
Mr. Manderton shook his head dubiously.
“Very ingenious,” he commented. “But you go rather fast, Mr. Greve. We must test your theory link by link. There may be an explanation for Jeekes’s apparently inexplicable lie to the young lady. Let’s see him and hear what he says. The grounds at Harkings must be searched for this second bullet, if second bullet there is, the mark on the tree examined by an expert. And since two bullets argue two pistols in this case, let us see what result we get from our enquiries as to where Mr. Parrish bought his pistol. He may have had two pistols ...”
“If Parrish used a silencer,” remarked Robin, quite undisconcerted by the other’s lack of enthusiasm, “and my theory that two shots were fired is correct, there must have been two reports, a loud one and a muffled one. Miss Trevert heard one report, as we know. Did she hear a second?”
“She said nothing about it,” remarked the detective.