Cecil Chacewater seemed both surprised and relieved to hear this question.
“No,” he said. “Maurice kept the combination to himself.”
Sir Clinton nodded as though he had expected this answer.
“Just another point,” he continued. “You may not be able to remember this. At any time after you and Foxton Polegate had planned that practical joke of yours, did Foss ask you the time?”
Cecil was obviously completely taken aback by this query.
“Did he ask me the time? Not that I know of. I can’t remember his ever doing that. Wait a bit, though. No, he didn’t.”
Sir Clinton seemed disappointed for a moment. Then, evidently, a fresh idea occurred to him.
“On the night of the masked ball, did anyone ask you the time?”
Cecil considered for a moment or two.
“Now I come to think of it, a fellow dressed as a cow-boy came up and said his watch had stopped.”
“Ah! I thought so,” was all Sir Clinton replied, much to the vexation of Inspector Armadale.
“By the way,” the Chief Constable went on, “I’d rather like to get to the top of one of those turrets up above.” He made a gesture indicating the roof. “There’s a stair, isn’t there?”
Armadale had difficulty in concealing his surprise at this unexpected demand. Cecil Chacewater made no difficulties, but led them upstairs and opened the door of the entrance to a turret. When they reached an open space at the summit, Sir Clinton leaned on the parapet and gazed over the surrounding country with interest. As the space was restricted, Cecil remained within the turret, at the top of the stair; but the Inspector joined his Chief on the platform.
“Splendid view, isn’t it, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir. Very fine.”
Armadale was evidently puzzled by this turn of affairs. He could not see why Sir Clinton should have come up to admire the view instead of getting on with the investigation. The Chief Constable did not seem to notice his subordinate’s perplexity.
“There’s Hincheldene,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “With a decent pair of glasses one could read the time on the clock-tower on a clear day. These woods round about give a restful look to things. Soothing, that greenery. Ah! Just follow my finger, Inspector. See that white thing over yonder? That’s one of these Fairy Houses.”
He searched here and there in the landscape for a moment.
“There’s another of them, just where you see that stream running across the opening between the two spinneys—yonder. And there’s a third one, not far off that ruined tower. See it? I wonder if we could pick up any more. They seem to be thick enough on the ground. Yes, see that one in the glade over there? Not see it? Look at that grey cottage with the creeper on it; two o’clock; three fingers. See it now?”
“I can’t quite make it out, sir,” the Inspector confessed.
He seemed bored by Sir Clinton’s insistence on the matter; but he held up his hand and tried to discover the object. After a moment or two he gave up the attempt and, turning round, he noticed his Chief slipping a small compass into his pocket.
“Quite worth seeing, that view,” Sir Clinton remarked, imperturbably, as he made his way towards the turret stair. “Thanks very much, Cecil. I don’t think we need trouble you any more for the present; but I’d like to see your sister, if she’s available. I want to ask her a question.”
Cecil Chacewater went in search of Joan, and after a few minutes she met them at the foot of the stair.
“There’s just one point that occurred to me since you told us about that interview you and Maurice had with Foss before you went to the museum. You were sitting on the terrace, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Joan confirmed.
“Then you must have seen Foss’s car drive up when it came to wait at the front door for him?”
“I remember seeing it come up just before we went to the museum. I didn’t say anything about it before. It didn’t seem to matter much.”
“That was quite natural,” Sir Clinton reassured her. “In fact, I’m not sure that it matters much even yet. I’m just trying for any evidence I can get. Tell me anything whatever that you noticed, no matter whether it seems important or not.”
Joan thought for almost a minute before replying.
“I did notice the chauffeur putting the hood up, and I wondered what on earth he was doing that for on a blazing day.”
“Anything else?”
“He had his tool-kit out and seemed to be going to do some repair or other.”
“At the moment when he’d brought the car round for Foss?” demanded the Inspector, rather incredulously. “Surely he’d have everything spick and span before he left the garage?”
“You’d better ask him about it himself, Inspector,” said Joan, tartly. “I’m merely telling what I saw; and I saw that plain enough. Besides, he may have known he’d plenty of time. Mr Foss was going away with us and obviously he wasn’t in a hurry to use the car.”
Sir Clinton ignored the Inspector’s interruption.
“I’ve got my own car at the door,” he observed. “Perhaps you could go out on to the terrace and direct me while I bring it into the same position as you saw Foss’s car that afternoon.”
Joan agreed; and they went down together.
“Now,” said Sir Clinton as he started the engine, “would you mind directing me?”
Joan, from the terrace, indicated how he was to manœuvre until he had brought his own car into a position as near as possible to that occupied by Foss’s car on the afternoon of the murder.
“That’s as near as I can get it,” she said at last.
Sir Clinton turned in his seat and scanned the front of Ravensthorpe.
“What window is this that I’m opposite?” he inquired.
“That’s the window of the museum,” Joan explained. “But you can’t see into the room, can you? You’re too low down there.”
“Nothing more than the tops of the cases,” Sir Clinton said. “You’d better get aboard, Inspector. There’s nothing more to do here.”
He waved good-bye to Joan as Armadale stepped into the car, and then drove down the avenue. The Inspector said nothing until they had passed out of the Ravensthorpe grounds and were on the high road again. Then he turned eagerly to the Chief Constable.
“That was a splash of blood you found on the wall of the underground room, wasn’t it? I recognized it at once.”
“Don’t get excited about it, Inspector,” said Sir Clinton, soothingly. “Of course it was blood; but we needn’t shout about it from the house-tops, need we?”
Armadale thought he detected a tacit reproof for his exclamation at the time the discovery was made.
“You covered up that word or two of mine very neatly, sir,” he admitted frankly. “I was startled when I saw that spot of blood on the wall, and I nearly blurted it out. Silly of me to do it, I suppose. But you managed to smother it up with that bungling with your lamp before I’d given anything away. I’d no notion you wanted to keep the thing quiet.”
“No harm done,” Sir Clinton reassured him. “But be careful another time. One needn’t show all one’s cards.”
“You certainly don’t,” Armadale retorted.
“Well, you have all the facts, Inspector. What more do you expect?”
Armadale thought it best to change the subject.
“That water that we saw down there,” he went on. “That never leaked in through the roof. The masonry overhead was as tight as a drum and there wasn’t a sign of drip-marks anywhere. That water came from somewhere else. Someone had been washing up in that cellar. There had been more blood there—lot’s of it; and they’d washed it away. That tiny patch was a bit they’d overlooked. Isn’t that so, sir?”
“That’s an inference and not a fact, Inspector,” Sir Clinton pointed out, with an expression approaching to a grin on his face. “I don’t say you’re wrong. In fact, I’m sure you’re right. But only facts are supposed to go into the common stock, remember.”