“Paints!” exclaimed Belvoir. “Yes, that explains it, indeed.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Gilbert Maryvale has been a very unhappy man,” said Belvoir slowly. “He has been chained to a big business that would have gone to pieces without him. He has made lots of money, but always wanted to be a painter. You see, Mr. Superintendent, he had an exquisitely sensitive spirit, for all his dealing in bills and notes.”
“I’m tryin’ to see,” said Salt.
“Well, he will never look in the flabby faces of a Board of Directors again. He has begun to paint.”
Is all the heart-crushing suspense in the world packed into this little Vale? Beyond the hills, I know, men and women are peacefully sleeping, and farther beyond, in the Glamorgan collieries, perhaps the night-shift is working with never a hint of the nameless dread that keeps us wakeful.
If I live through the night, I shall get out on the uplands early in the morning. I know a trick or two of throwing a hitch from tree to tree. With a stout rope I can climb one of these wooded hillsides, even if it prove vertical! Then I shall breathe!
3.50 A.M.
I have just awakened with a grim and unalterable thought. Confound Doctor Stephen Ashmill Aire for his subtle hints and theories. If what he suggested this afternoon is true, that there is some hidden means of access to the lawn, what awful consequences are thrust into mind! Yes, if he is right, the murderer may be one of those people who came rushing in from all directions while we stood about Cosgrove’s body. I hesitate to write their names, but it may be Belvoir or Bob Cullen or Maryvale, for instance, or even one of the women, if in her fury her arm became iron.