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If only he had been able to find that bullet in the rosery! Robin thought ruefully of his long hunt among the sopping rose-bushes. Yes, there had been only one shot. Mary Trevert had stated it definitely. Besides, the bullet that had killed Hartley Parrish had been fired from his own revolver and had been found in the body. Robin Greve felt the murder theory collapsing about him.
"But what grounds have you for saying that Mr. Greve went in to Mr. Parrish? Mr. Greve declared quite positively that he went out by the side door and did not go into the library at all." "But, Miss, I heard him speaking to Mr. Parrish ..." The girl turned round and the man saw fear in her wide-open eyes. The butler put his hand on the back of her chair and leaned forward.
Slow to anger, rather stolid, and with an excellent heart, he had a vein of shrewd common sense not uncommonly found in that fast disappearing species, the English peasant. He nodded shortly to Greve, and with a tread that shook the room strode across to where Hartley Parrish was lying dead.
"What's all this about blackmail being levied from Holland?" Then Robin Greve told him of the letters written on the slatey-blue paper and of their effect upon Parrish, and of the letter headed, "Elias van der Spyck & Co., General Importers, Rotterdam," which had lain on the desk in the library when Parrish's dead body had been found. Manderton nodded gloomily.
"He says very little, but as far as I can gather his investigations are based on the assumption that you killed Parrish. Don't get angry, Wigan. It is really not such an outrageous point of view, and for the present I am shaking my head with him and am inclined to his opinion." "It is a disgraceful suspicion," said Zena.
The room had been transformed from a rather prosaic morning-room with old oak and chintz in the space of three days as a surprise for Mary. She remembered now how Parrish had left her to make the discovery of the change for herself.
Robin laughed cynically. "Manderton doesn't worry me any," he said cheerfully. "The man's the victim of an idee fixe. He believes Parrish killed himself just as firmly as he believes that I frightened or bullied Parrish into doing it ..." "Don't be too sure about that, Robin," said the boy, dropping the curtain and coming back to Robin's chair. "He may want you to think that.
Greve," replied the man without hesitation. "Why undoubtedly?" asked the girl. "It could have been no one else. We know that he left you hot to get at Mr. Parrish and have words with him. Bude heard them talking with voices raised aloud...." "But if the door were locked?" "Mr. Parrish may have opened it and locked it again, Mr. Greve getting out by the window.
The writer believed Parrish to be in danger from this 'B. who was coming to England. Now, was it B. who found him the other night after three years' search?" "The name is on the door and in the directory," I answered. "That is another point to remember, Wigan. Now, I daresay you have learnt from your inquiries in the building that very little was known about Parrish.
Then in a little while Bude and Jay and two bucolic-looking policemen came to the library to move the body of the master of Harkings. Robin stood by and watched the little procession pass slowly with silent feet across the soft pile carpet and out into the corridor. But his thoughts were not with Parrish.
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