On our way back to Waterloo that night Dick earnestly discussed the situation.
“And what’s your opinion now?” I inquired, as he sat opposite me in the corner of the railway carriage.
Dick smiled slightly. “Both mother and daughter are connected with the affair, and are in deadly fear,” he replied decisively. “While in the punt with Mary Blain I had a long chat with her, and the conclusion I’ve formed is that she knows all about it. Besides, she was very anxious to know your recent movements—what you had been doing during the past week or so.”
“I wonder whether she suspects?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he answered. “Neither mother nor daughter dream that we are in possession of the secret. You see no one has returned to the place since the fatal night, and, as nothing has appeared in the papers, they naturally conclude that the affair has not yet been discovered.”
“They evidently devour almost every morning and evening paper as it arrives down there. Did you notice the heap of papers in the morning-room?” I asked.
“Of course. I kept my eyes well open while there,” he replied. “Did it strike you that the plate used at dinner was of exactly the same pattern as that on the table at Phillimore Place, and further, that among a pile of novels in the drawing-room was a book which one would not expect to find in such a place—a work known mainly to toxicologists, for it deals wholly with the potency of poisons?”
“No,” I said in surprise, “I didn’t notice either of those things.”
“But I did,” he went on reflectively. “All these facts go to convince me.”
“Of what?”