‘Well, it’s not mine!’ said Roydon.

‘It’s mine,’ said Stephen coolly, raising his eyes to the Inspector’s. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘Had you mislaid it, sir?’

Stephen did not answer for a moment. Joseph said with uneasy jocularity: ‘I don’t suppose he knows whether he had or not! I’m afraid my nephew’s always leaving things about, aren’t you, Stephen? Where did you pick it up, Inspector? We don’t want any mysteries, if you don’t mind!’

‘It was discovered, sir, in the late Mr Herriard’s bedroom,’ replied the Inspector.

Joseph’s airy manner momentarily deserted him. He gave a gasp, and said in a hurry: ‘Oh, there might be dozens of explanations to account for that! Why – why, my nephew probably put it down there when we were in the room together, or very likely – or at least quite possibly my brother found it lying somewhere, and took it up, meaning to give it back to him. Oh, I can think of any number of explanations!’

‘Well, don’t!’ said Stephen ungratefully. ‘Mind telling me precisely where this was found, Inspector?’

‘It was lying on the floor, half under the chair by the fire.’

‘Oh, then the thing’s perfectly plain!’ said Joseph, still labouring in Stephen’s defence. ‘I expect it slipped out of your pocket, old man, and in the agitation of the moment you didn’t notice it. When you were bending over poor Nat. That would be it!’

‘The case was not found anywhere near the body of the deceased, sir,’ interpolated the Inspector.

‘Oh! Well, I daresay it got kicked across the room,’ said Joseph, in a despairing way. ‘I’m sure we were all so much upset that anything could have happened! Stephen, why don’t you say something? There’s nothing in this! We all know that! There’s no need to be silly about it! All the Inspector wants to know is –’

‘So far, I’ve had damned little chance of saying anything,’ said Stephen. ‘If you’ve quite finished handing out a line of talk which wouldn’t convince a half-wit, I will state two facts. I don’t know how my case got into my uncle’s room. It did not fall out of my pocket, possibly because my agitation didn’t lead me to stand on my head, but more certainly because I hadn’t it on me when I entered the room.’

The Inspector took no trouble to conceal his scepticism. Joseph plunged again into deep waters. ‘Depend upon it, my brother took it upstairs with him! Really, there’s no need –’

‘And dropped it on the floor, sir?’

‘Pushed it under the chair, apparently,’ said Stephen. ‘Or is that what I’m supposed to have done, Inspector?’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ answered the Inspector. ‘It might have fallen off the chair – if someone sitting there thought he’d put it in his pocket, but happened to drop it into the chair instead, and then got up. Someone a bit careless, maybe.’

‘I object to that!’ Joseph interrupted. ‘That’s deliberately twisting a perfectly innocent remark of mine to mean something I never intended, and which is absurd – quite absurd!’