“Naturally. Forgive me for saying so, miss, but I quite appreciate your point of view. If I were in your place I should regard the matter in just the same light. I, however, wondered whether you had heard news of him during the last day or two.”
“No. I have heard nothing.”
“And,” he said, “I suppose if you did hear, you would not tell me?”
“That is my own affair, Mr. Shrimpton,” she replied resentfully. “If you desire to arrest Mr. Henfrey it is your own affair. Why do you ask me to assist you?”
“In the interests of justice,” was the inspector’s reply.
“Well,” said the girl, very promptly, “I tell you at once that I refuse to assist you in your endeavour to arrest Mr. Henfrey. Whether he is guilty or not guilty I have not yet decided.”
“But he must be guilty. There was the motive. He shot the woman who had enticed his father to his death.”
“And how have you ascertained that?”
“By logical deduction.”
“Then you are trying to convict Mr. Henfrey upon circumstantial evidence alone?”