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"Come inside for a minute and tell me about this," he said. He led Bruce into the vast smoking-room of the club. They took seats in a distant corner near the blazing fire. The room was practically deserted. Now, Mr. Jeekes's excessive carefulness about money had been a long-standing joke amongst his assistants when Bruce Wright had belonged to Hartley Parrish's secretarial staff.
The concealed lights which were set all round the cornice of the room were turned on, flooding the pleasantly snug room with soft reflected light. A little group stood about the fire, Bude, Jay, Hartley Parrish's man, and a stranger. Jay was engaged in earnest conversation with the stranger.
It was tucked away between two letter-trays. One tray fitted into the other, and this letter had slipped between. It seems to have been overlooked both by Mr. Parrish's secretary and the police ..." "But I confess," argued the Major, "that I don't see how this letter, which appears to be a very ordinary business communication, implicates anybody at all. Why shouldn't the police see it?..."
Parrish an old stock to go riding in as some new ones he had bought were stiff and hurt him." "And this steel cup was on the pistol then?" "Oh, yes, sir!" "And you say it was not on the pistol when Mr. Parrish's body was found?" "No, sir!" "Are you sure of this?" "Yes, sir. I was one of the first in the room, and I saw the pistol in Mr. Parrish's hand, and there was no sign of the cup, sir.
Robin Greve called Inspector Humphries as the latter was preparing to follow Bude to the drawing-room. "Mr. Parrish seems to have written a note for Miss Trevert," he said, pointing at the desk. "And in that envelope you will find Mr. Parrish's will. I discovered it there on the desk just before you arrived!" Again the Inspector shot one of his swift glances at the young man.
"Manderton," he said, "these letters written on this blue paper were in code, I feel sure. Why should not this be the key? You see it bears a date 'Nov. 25. May it not refer to that letter? I found it by Parrish's body on the carpet in the library.
Parrish's affairs than anybody else, and I shall be very glad if you will stay on and help me. You know I have been left sole executrix...." "Miss Trevert," the little man stammered in his embarrassment, "this is handsome of you. I surely thought you would have wished to make your own arrangements, appoint your own secretaries...." Mr. Jeekes broke off and looked at her, blinking hard.
Thus he had stood for fully ten minutes listening in vain for any sound within the house. All was still as death. He began to think that the bell was out of order. He had forgotten Hartley Parrish's insistence on quiet. All bells at Harkings rang, discreetly muted, in the servants' hall. He stepped out of the porch on to the drive.
And he looked at the papers in her hand. "I used to be Mr. Parrish's secretary, you know," he said. The girl sighed a little fluttering sigh and looked earnestly at him. "I remember," she said. "Hartley liked you. He was sorry that he sent you away. He often spoke of you to me. But why have you come back? What do you mean by saying you have come for the same purpose as myself?"
Parrish's death, based on the evidence he has taken here this evening. You will tell me if it tallies." He read from the slip: 5 P.M. Bude sounds the gong for tea. 5.10 Mr. Greve passes Bude in the hall and goes down the corridor leading to the library. Mr. Greve states he went straight out by the side door into the gardens. The detective looked up from his reading.
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