“Then you had better send your little girl after him,” said Rolfe, seating himself on the one rickety chair on the outside of the counter.  “I want to see him.”

Mrs. Hill seemed at a loss to reply for a moment.  Then she answered, nervously plucking at her apron the while:  “I don’t think it’d be much use doing that, sir.  You see, Mr. Hill doesn’t always tell me where he’s going and I don’t really know where he is.”

“Then why did you tell me that he had just stepped out down the street?” asked Rolfe sharply.

“Because I thought he mightn’t be far away.”

“Then, as a matter of fact, you don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back?”

“No, sir.”

Her prompt and uncompromising reply indicated that she did not want him to wait for her husband.

“I think I’ll wait,” said Rolfe, looking at her steadily.

“Yes, sir.”

Daphne appeared at the door of the parlour which led into the shop and her mother waved her back angrily.

“Go to bed this instant, miss; it’s long past your bedtime,” she said.

It was obvious that Mrs. Hill retained a vivid recollection of how disastrous had been Daphne’s appearance during Inspector Chippenfield’s first visit to the shop.

“Perhaps your little girl knows where her father is,” said Rolfe maliciously.

“No, she doesn’t,” replied Mrs. Hill with some spirit.  “You can ask her if you like.”

Rolfe was suddenly struck with an idea and he decided to test it.

“I won’t wait—­I’ve changed my mind.  But if your husband comes in tell him not to go to bed until I’ve seen him.  I’ll be back.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

“Do you think he was going to Riversbrook?” he asked.

The woman flushed suddenly and then went pale.  She knew as well as Rolfe that her husband was strictly forbidden, pending the trial, to go near the place of his former employment, and that the police had relieved him of his keys and taken possession of the silent house and locked everything up.

“No, sir,” she replied, with trembling lips, “Mr. Hill hasn’t gone over there.”

“How can you be certain, if he didn’t tell you where he was going?” asked Rolfe.

“Because it’s the last place in the world he’d think of going to,” gasped Mrs. Hill.  “Such a thought would never enter his head.  I do assure you, sir, Mr. Hill would never dream of going over there, sir, you can take my word for it.”

Rolfe walked thoughtfully up High Street.  Was it possible that Hill had gone to his late master’s residence in defiance of the orders of the police?  If so, only some very powerful motive, and probably one which affected the crime, could have induced him to risk his liberty by making such a visit after he had been commanded to keep away from the place.  And how would he get into the house?  Rolfe had himself locked up the house and had locked the gates,