“In any case, Mr. Rattray,” he sat up abruptly and changed his tone, “if you can’t trust me not to waste your time, you can trust me not to waste mine. I have my own reasons for coming to you and asking you certain questions. Naturally, you’re under no obligation to answer them. If you’d prefer not to——”
He got up. Rattray at once put out a restraining hand.
“Not at all, not at all. You misunderstand me. I was merely curious to know just in what way——”
“Perhaps you would sooner talk to Inspector Bradstreet?”
“No, no. Please sit down, Mr. McKay. I am more than ready to answer any question you may care to ask.”
Ellis sat down, still looking ruffled. He put his hands on his knees, and cleared his throat.
“Inspector Bradstreet has given me a clear picture of the Baildon ménage. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Baildon was in his room for two and a half hours. It appears from their statements that Mrs. Baildon spent this time with a friend, Miss Jenkinson, and with her sister: and that Miss Joan Baildon sat at the bottom of the garden, reading and sewing, except for ten minutes when she went to get some biscuits for her father which she had forgotten to put on her mother’s shopping list. Mrs. Baildon’s statement is susceptible of proof: the girl’s isn’t. The ten minutes away can be checked all light, and at one time during the afternoon she was seen by, and exchanged words with, Mr. Pawle, who left the newspaper. When I tell you that the” list of possible suspects—possible suspects, mind you—includes Dr. Carter, an American gentleman who came earlier in the afternoon to see some books, any tradesmen who may have called, anyone in fact who could have got in unobserved during those two and a half hours and got out again, you will see that character and motive are of the first importance in this case, and you will, I hope, lose any doubts you may have upon the validity of my enquiries.”
“My dear Mr. McKay—please—let me assure you, I entertained no doubts which you yourself did not raise. I was fully prepared to answer each and every question.”
One for you, Ellis, Gilkison thought to himself. You were too clever for once.
Ellis proceeded to put a number of obvious questions about the principal personages, concentrating on Dr. Carter, Mrs. Exworthy, and Treweek. He carefully kept away from the Baildons, and, to Gilkison’s surprise, made no mention whatever of Eunice Caunter.
Then, without warning, he jumped straight into the Baildon household.
“You have been giving Joan Baildon Latin lessons, I understand?”
Rattray’s right foot, which had been tapping rhythmically, stopped.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“For——” he considered, head tilted back. “For close on ten months.”
“Do you find her an apt pupil?”
“An extremely conscientious and willing one.” He flushed. “If she had had normal opportunities, she would have experienced no difficulty whatever. But, as I expect you know, her eyesight has been a grave handicap. And—to tell you the truth—I don’t think the teaching she had previously was of first rate quality.”
“Let me see. She has also been having lessons from a Miss Caunter, has she not?”
“Miss Caunter does not teach Latin,” Rattray said quickly. “Her subjects are English, French, History and Needlework.”
“I see. None of Joan Baildon’s shortcomings are to be laid at her door, then. As a matter of fact, Miss Caunter has been of very considerable help to the girl, hasn’t she? Dr. Carter gave me to understand that she had done a great deal for her.”
“She has given freely of her time. No genuine teacher could fail to do so, in such a case.”
“Good. It’s highly important for me to know this, when I come to interview Joan Baildon. She is in a highly nervous state, and—well, you can see how carefully I must go with her.”
Rattray inclined his head. He moistened his lower lip with his tongue.
“Mr. Rattray, I’m going to ask you a very direct question.”
Watching him closely, Ellis fancied he saw him brace himself.
“Joan Baildon strikes me—I admit the circumstances in which I met her were unfavourable, and she was naturally agitated—all the same, she strikes me as a girl suffering from severe inner conflict. Probably from more than one conflict. Now, Mr. Rattray, judging from your knowledge of her, what would you say these conflicts are?”
Rattray considered before replying. His foot resumed its tapping.
“There is always, of course, the conflict with her immediate environment. She and her mother on one side, and her father on the other. Then there’s her longing to get out of the house and out of the village into a wider world. I suppose those are the chief two conflicts in her life.”
“I had wondered if there was anything else. It struck me that she was a girl who had been emotionally over-stimulated.”
The foot stopped.
“In what way?” Rattray asked, after a pause.
“I hoped that you could tell me. She has the look of a child who has borne burdens far beyond her years.”
“That is true of most young people, in my experience,” Rattray said, more confidently. “We tend to forget the intensity of young people’s difficulties. They can suffer terribly. And, nowadays——”
“I know that,” Ellis interrupted him. “But usually what they feel intensely are their own problems, their own sufferings, the sufferings proper to youth. Miss Baildon has the look of someone who has been forced to feel prematurely the pains and difficulties of older people.”
“I was about to say, that can happen too, nowadays.”
“If it is true in her case, you don’t know what the special problems are?”
“No. I don’t think I do. She—— No.” He shook his head. “I can’t say.”
“When you are with her, is the conversation confined to the lessons, or does it cover wider grounds?”
“We talk, sometimes, of the events of the day. And of her future hopes and prospects. I have once or twice confided in her my anxieties about my wife. It is flattering to young people to be consulted in such matters.”
“Were you trying to flatter her?”
The question was rapped out so sharply that Rattray blinked.
“No, no. You misunderstand me. I genuinely wanted to know how the matter might look to another woman. Joan is young, I know, but she has an air of maturity which now and then makes one forget how young she is. My dear wife suffers a great deal, and needs humouring: and it is always a problem to know how far one should go. One does not want to enervate her character, to give in more than one should: and yet one’s instinct is to yield in everything.”
“Quite. You mean, then, that you consulted Joan for your own sake, and at the same time reflected that it would please her to be consulted.”
“Exactly, Mr. McKay. That is exactly what I mean.” He looked down at the grass, then up again. “Possibly I have been to blame, in laying upon her some of these older problems we have been talking about. I hope not.”
Ellis’s next question was completely unexpected to both listeners.
“Mr. Rattray. Did you go into the Baildons’ house at any time yesterday afternoon?”
There was a moment of complete silence. Then Rattray swallowed.
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
Ellis leaned forward. His voice seemed to express no more than a friendly interest.
“What took you there, Mr. Rattray?”
Rattray’s face had flooded with colour. He jerked up his head and answered firmly.
“I had borrowed a book of Mr. Baildon’s, in order to verify some facts I needed for a talk I was going to give my scouts.”