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But although he was slightly older and taller than Frankie he could not lift the iron so often or hold it out so long as the other, a failure that Frankie attributed to the fact that Charley had too much tea and bread and butter instead of porridge and milk and Parrish's Food.
"Oh, but you can discuss everything, Mr. Jeekes," replied Mary Trevert composedly. "I am not a child, you know. I am perfectly well aware that there's a woman somewhere in the life of every man, very often two or three. I haven't got any illusions on the subject, I assure you. I never supposed for a moment that I was the first woman in Mr. Parrish's life...."
His sleep had been haunted by the riddle which, since the previous evening, had cast its shadow over the pleasant house. The mystery of Hartley Parrish's death obsessed him. If it was suicide, and the doctors were both positive on the point the motive eluded him utterly. His mind, trained to logical processes of reasoning by his practice of the law, baulked at the theory.
Beyond the fact that it dealt in plain commercial fashion with some shipments or other, he could recall no particular whatever of it. "But where did you get hold of this sheet of paper?" Bruce Wright's voice broke in impatiently behind him. "I'm most frightfully interested to know ..." "Found it on the floor beside Parrish's body," answered Robin briefly.
A quarter of an hour later, Hartley Parrish's Rolls-Royce glided through the straggling main street of Stevenish. A chapel bell tinkled unmusically, and on the pavements, gleaming with wet, went a procession of neatly dressed townsfolk bound, prayer-book in hand, for their respective places of worship.
"Ah!" said Manderton, "you mean the door was locked when the body was found! Now, as to these voices. Were they men's voices?" "Yes, sir, I should say so." "Why?" "Because they were deep-like!" "Was Mr. Hartley Parrish's voice one of them?" The butler spread out his hands. "That I couldn't say! I just heard the murmur-like, then shut the passage door quickly ..." "Why?"
Manderton with a long, shrewd look that comprehended the company, individually and collectively, and the entire room, "if Inspector Humphries will kindly close the door, we will reconstruct the crime in the light of the evidence we have collected." He turned round to the desk and pulled back the chair ... Hartley Parrish's empty chair.
The detective helped himself to a cheroot from a box on the table and lit up. Then, affecting to scan the end of his cigar with great attention, he asked abruptly: "What do you know of the woman calling herself Madame de Malpas?" Robin pursed up his lips rather disdainfully. "One of the late Mr. Parrish's lady friends," he replied. "I expect you know that!"
"Did Jeekes know about it?" "Jeekes? Do you mean Parrish's secretary? "It's funny your asking that. As a matter of fact, it was through Jeekes that I heard the lady was dead. I was in Le Hagen's office one day when Jeekes came in, and Le Hagen told me Jeekes had come to pay in a cheque for the cost of the funeral and the transport of the body to France."
It was Hartley Parrish's will. The letter was merely a covering note from Mr. Bardy, of the firm of Jerringham, Bardy and Company, a well-known firm of solicitors, dated the previous evening. Robin replaced letter and document in their envelope without reading them. "So that's it!" he murmured to himself. "Suicide? But why?" All the letter-trays save one were empty.
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