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Then Mr. Manley said in a musing tone: "Do you suppose that Colonel Grey finds her simple?" "What? You don't think that there is really anything serious between them?" said Mr. Flexen quickly. "No, not really serious at any rate, on Colonel Grey's part. You can hardly expect a man, recovering very slowly from three bad wounds and still crocked up, to fall in love, can you?
Manley firmly, with a note of contrition in his voice. Mr. Flexen opened his mouth a little way. It was a superb invention. It left Mrs. Manley free to go into the witness-box to tell the story she had told him. It knocked the bottom clean out of Carrington's case.
She looked harassed and seemed to find the lunch rather a strain. He observed also that she did not, as did her guests, who were so slightly acquainted with him, pay any tribute to the character of her dead husband. Mr. Flexen was not lunching with them.
There you have the whole business." "I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mr. Flexen. Mr. Manley rose with an air of great dignity and said: "My good chap, I can excuse your temper. It was an ingenious theory, and it must be very annoying to have it upset. But I'm fed up with this Loudwater business. I've got here" he tapped the manuscript on the table "a drama worth fifty of it.
"They exist; but they don't commit murders not in Europe, at any rate," said Mr. Flexen. "In the East and in the United States it's different perhaps. Murder is always as much of a blunder as a crime. It makes people so keen after the criminal. No: no really intelligent criminal commits murder." "Of course, that's true," said Mr. Manley readily.
I didn't see him after he left my dressing-room. It was there he made the row while I was dressing for dinner." Mr. Flexen paused; then he said: "Mr. Manley tells me that Lord Loudwater used to sleep every evening after dinner. Do you think that he was too upset to go to sleep last night?" "Oh, dear no! I've known him go to sleep in his smoking-room after a much worse row than that!" cried Olivia.
"Go on," said Mr. Flexen. "What happened next?" "Nothing 'appened for a long while twenty minutes, I should think and then there come a woman round the right-'and corner of the Castle wall and along it and into the libery winder. At first I thought it was Mrs. Carruthers, or one of the maids she were too tall for her ladyship but it warn't." "Are you quite sure?" said Mr. Flexen. "Quite, sir.
"She didn't need any shielding," said Mr. Flexen. "Do you mean to tell me that she didn't murder Loudwater?" "She did not. You don't murder a man who has just given you twelve thousand pounds," said Mr. Flexen. "Twelve thousand pounds?" said Mr. Carrington slowly. Then he started from his chair and almost howled: "Are you telling me that Lord Loudwater gave this woman twelve thousand pounds!
He had only to declare that he heard Lord Loudwater snore at twelve o'clock to break down the case against any one of the four persons between whom the crime obviously lay. Mr. Flexen had a shrewd suspicion that Mr. Manley would fail to remember at what time he had last heard Lord Loudwater's snores till the police had set about securing the conviction of one of the possible murderers.
Was he engaged in a love-affair with any woman, or had he been?" "He certainly did not tell me anything about it if he was," said Mr. Manley. "But that is the kind of thing he might very well not confide to his secretary." "You don't happen to know if he was making any payments to a woman an allowance, for example?" said Mr. Flexen. Mr. Manley was well on his guard by now.
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