"Until I have a little more data, Mr. Halliday, I'm afraid I can't venture any opinion," replied Harding expressionlessly.
"Of course the unfortunate part of it is that there are so many of us who might have done it," said Halliday ruefully. "Myself, and Guest, and young Billington-Smith, and I suppose Miss de Silva as well. I don't mind telling you that I shall be rather glad when it's been cleared up. I'm not a fool, and I can't but see that so far everything points either to me or to Billington-Smith." He looked round quickly as his wife came in. "Ah, there you are, Camilla! Come along, dear: the Inspector just wants to ask you one or two questions."
Harding had risen. "Will you sit down, Mrs. Halliday? Yes, in that chair, please." He turned to Halliday. "I won't keep you any longer Mr. Halliday," he said pleasantly.
"Oh, that's all right, Inspector!" Halliday replied. "I'll stay till you've finished with my wife."
"I would rather see your wife alone, if you don't mind," said Harding, still pleasantly, but with a note of purpose in his voice.
Halliday frowned. "Is that entirely necessary? My wife would much prefer me to stay with her — she's feeling very nervy still, aren't you, Camilla?"
Harding smiled down at Camilla. "There's no need for you to be at all nervous, Mrs. Halliday. Sergeant, will you open the door for Mr. Halliday?" He sat down again at the table, and pushed the papers on it a little way away from him. His attitude was rather that of one settling down to a comfortable talk; he did not look towards Halliday again, and after a moment's indecision Halliday left the room.
The Sergeant, having shut the door, went back to take up his dogged stand again before the fireplace, but was foiled.
"Sit down, Sergeant," said Harding, nodding to a chair behind Camilla's. "Now, Mrs. Halliday, I'm sure this has all been a great shock to you, and you would much rather not talk about it. But I'm afraid I shall have to ask you one or two rather important questions, over which I think probably you can help me."
Camilla, who had entered the room with a mixture of fright and defiance on her pretty, weak face, revived somewhat under this gentle handling, and spoke quite cordially. "Of course, I don't mind a bit, only I simply don't know anything, Inspector."
"Well," said Harding, laughing, "if I ask you anything you don't know you must just say so, and we'll try again."
Camilla gave a little titter, and patted the set waves of her hair. "Oh, if you're not going to be cross with me for not knowing things, I'm ready to answer anything. Only I've got awfully highly strung nerves — I've always been like it: most frightfully sensitive — and that ghastly policeman yesterday simply barked at me, and it was too awful for words."
"I won't bark at you," promised Harding. With not appearing to look very closely at her he had, nevertheless, kept his eyes on her face from the moment she had entered the room. As a result of this trained observation he said now: "You will have to forgive me it I ask you something rather personal, Mrs. Halliday. You are, if I may say so, a very attractive woman. I think the General thought so too, didn't he?"
Camilla laughed again, and threw him her coquettish glance. "Well, I must say I never expected to receive compliments from the police, Inspector! "Tisn't for me to say whether I'm attractive or not."
"I should hardly believe that the General did not find you so," prompted Harding.
"Oh well, perhaps he did, a bit. You know what old men are, and although Lady Billington-Smith's awfully sweet — I'm frightfully fond of her, you know — she always gives me the impression of being rather cold. Poor Sir Arthur wanted to have some fun, I expect, and he happened to like me rather — I don't know why, I'm sure — and that's how it was." She paused, and added: "Of course, there was nothing in it! He just liked to flirt a little, and he was ever so much older than me."
"I quite understand," nodded Harding. "And I expect that like a great many men of his type he was inclined to he tactless in his flirtations — forgetting that you had a husband by you."
A wary look crept into the shallow blue eyes. "Oh, Basil absolutely trusts me, Inspector!"
"I'm sure he does. But he might still feel a trifle jealous," suggested Harding.
"You know too much, Inspector. I daresay Basil was a tiny bit jealous, but not seriously — because, I mean, he had no cause."
Harding raised his brows quizzically. "No cause at all, Mrs. Halliday? Are you going to tell me you didn't lead Sir Arthur on just a little?"
Again she patted her hair. "Perhaps I did — a very little," she said archly. "However did you guess?"
"Well, there must have been some reason for his extraordinary behaviour in trying to make you accept a cheque for fifty pounds," Harding replied. "I imagined that in all probability you did flirt with him just enough to make him leap to quite wrong conclusions."
At the mention of the cheque she had flushed, and seemed to retire into her shell. She said cautiously: "I don't know why he gave me that cheque. It was frightful cheek, and of course I ought to have told him so, only it was so awfully awkward."
"It must have taken you very much by surprise," said Harding sympathetically.
"Oh, it did, absolutely! I didn't know what to say."
"Where were you, Mrs. Halliday, when he gave it to you?"
"We were at the keeper's cottage. You see, Sir Arther had promised to show me a litter of puppies just as soon as he'd been to the bank in Ralton. I simply adore puppies."
"At what time was this, Mrs. Halliday?"
"Well, I don't think-oh yes, I do! It was eleven o'clock, well, a minute or two later, probably, because he had to put some notes, or something, into his safe first."
Harding looked up. "Was Sir Arthur wearing gloves Mrs. Halliday?"
"Gloves? No, of course not. Why?"
"I merely wanted to know. You were saying that you were in the kennels when the cheque was given you. Was there a pen and ink for him to write with there?"
"Oh, he had his fount -" She broke off, and added trifle shrilly: "He didn't write the cheque there, Inspector. He just pulled it out of his pocket and sort of pressed it into my hand. He'd written it before, of course."
"Ah, I see!" said Harding. "And — quite honestly, Mrs. Halliday — you hadn't given him any reason to think that you would accept it?"
"Oh no, I was simply astonished at him!" averred Camilla.
Harding moved several of the papers on the table, and chose one from amongst them. With his eyes on it he said: "You hadn't at any time during the weekend allowed Sir Arthur to kiss you?"
Camilla, her gaze also riveted to the paper, hesitated. The Sergeant, aware that amongst the various statements before Harding there was none in the least relevant to the question, nodded his head slowly in appreciation of this stratagem.
Harding looked up from the document in his hand. "Come, Mrs. Halliday! Did Sir Arthur kiss you or not?"
"There's no harm in a kiss," she said defensively. "What if he did?"
"Once, Mrs. Halliday, or several times?"
"I don't know who it is who's been spying on me," Camilla said, "but I think it's the absolute limit!"
Harding did not pursue the question any further. He laid the paper down again, and sat back in his chair. "Let us go back to where we were," he said. "What happened after the General had pressed this cheque on you?"
"We motored back to the house," answered Camilla sullenly.
"And then?"
"Sir Arthur wanted me to take some of his roses home with me, and he called Lady Billington-Smith down to see about it. I must say, I did think at the time that she was rather fed-up. Sir Arthur was being awfully complimentary to me, and I could see she didn't like it, so I just ran upstairs to take my hat off. Of course I've always had a sort of feeling about Fay, that though she's so quiet, and sweet, if you know what I mean, she's one of those people who get simply frightfully jealous underneath. At least, that's how she struck me, and of course one couldn't help seeing that she didn't get on with Sir Arthur. I was rather sorry for him, in a way. I simply hate saying anything about my friends, and I'm not in the least narrow-minded — in fact, quite the opposite — but I must say I did think the way she and Mr. Guest behaved was a bit thick. I mean it was utterly obvious that she's in love with him, and he with her. And poor Sir Arthur was quite unsuspecting, which did seem to me rather pathetic'