‘What sort of a word?’ asked Hemingway.

‘Oh, about Mr Herriard’s will! He didn’t actually say everything was left to Stephen, but I sort of gathered it.’

‘I see. Did you tell Mr Stephen?’

‘Yes; but he only laughed, and said he didn’t care.’

‘He seems to be a difficult kind of young man to have to do with,’ said Hemingway.

She sighed. ‘Yes, and I don’t really – Oh well! Only I wish I’d never come here!’

‘I’m sure I don’t blame you,’ said Hemingway, wondering how to get rid of her, now that he had extracted the information he wanted.

This problem was solved for him by Mathilda, who came into the hall at that moment from the passage leading to the billiard-room. Valerie flushed guiltily, and ran upstairs. Mathilda’s cool, shrewd gaze followed her, and returned, enquiringly, to the Inspector’s face. ‘I seem to have scared Miss Dean,’ she remarked, strolling across the hall towards him. ‘Was she being indiscreet?’

He was slightly taken aback, but hid it creditably. ‘Not at all. We’ve just been having a pleasant little chat,’ he replied.

‘I can readily imagine it,’ Mathilda said.

Thirteen

While these various encounters had been taking place, Mrs Dean had been usefully employing her time in conversation with Edgar Mottisfont. Like Valerie, he too was suffering from a sense of wrong, and it did not take Mrs Dean long to induce him to confide in her. The picture he painted of Stephen’s character was not flattering, nor did his account of the circumstances leading up to the murder lead her to look hopefully upon the outcome of the police investigation. Really, the case seemed to be much blacker against Stephen than Joseph’s story had led her to suppose. She began to look rather thoughtful, and when Mottisfont told her bluntly that if he were Valerie’s father he would not let her marry such a fellow, she said vaguely that nothing had been settled, and Valerie was full young to be thinking of marriage.

It was really a very awkward situation for a conscientious parent to find herself in. No one had informed her of the actual size of Nathaniel Herriard’s fortune, but she assumed it to be considerable, and it was a well-known fact that rich young men were not easily encountered in these hard times. But if Stephen should be convicted of having murdered his uncle, as seemed to be all too probable, the money would never come to him, and Valerie would reap nothing but the obvious disadvantages of having been betrothed to a murderer.

While Mottisfont talked, and her own lips formed civil replies, her mind was busy over the problem. Not even to herself would she admit that she had jockeyed Stephen into proposing to Valerie, but she had not spent several hours at Lexham without realising that his brief infatuation had worn itself out. She would not put it beyond Stephen, she thought, to jilt Valerie, if he were not first arrested for murder. The trouble was that although Valerie was as pretty as a picture she lacked the intelligence to hold the interest of a man of Stephen’s type. Mrs Dean faced that truth unflinchingly. The child hadn’t enough sense to see on which side her bread was buttered. She demanded flattery, and assiduous attentions, and if she did not get them from her betrothed she would be quite capable of throwing him over in a fit of pique.