“Yes, sir.”

“All right.  You can go now.”

Bolton touched his bowler and departed, and Gatton turned to me with a grim smile.

“We’ll just step inside again,” he said, “so as not to attract any undue attention.”

He again unlocked the garage door and closed it as we entered.

“Now,” said he, “before we go any further what was your idea in keeping back the fact that one of the missing links in the chain of evidence was already in your possession?”

“No doubt,” I said rather guiltily, “you refer to the fact of my acquaintance with Miss Isobel Merlin?”

“I do!” said Gatton, “and to the fact that you nipped in ahead of me and interviewed this important witness before I had even heard of her existence.”  He continued to smile, but the thoroughness and unflinching pursuit of duty which were the outstanding features of the man, underlay his tone of badinage.  “I want to say,” he continued, “that for your cooperation, which has been very useful to me on many occasions, I am always grateful, but if in return I give you facilities which no other pressman has, I don’t expect you to abuse them.”

“Really, Inspector,” I replied, “you go almost too far.  I have done nothing to prejudice your case nor could I possibly have known until my interview this morning with Miss Merlin, that it was she in whom the late Sir Marcus was interested.”

“H’m,” said Gatton, but still rather dubiously, his frank, wide-open eyes regarding me in that naive manner which was so deceptive.

“All that I learned,” I continued, “is unequivocally at your disposal.  Finally I may tell you—­and I would confess it to few men—­that Miss Merlin is a very old friend and might have been something more if I had not been a fool.”

“Oh!” said Gatton, and his expression underwent a subtle change—­“Oh!  That’s rather awkward; in fact”—­he frowned perplexedly—­“it’s damned awkward!”

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

“Well,” said he, “I don’t know what account Miss Merlin gave to you of her relations with Sir Marcus—­”

“Relations!” I said hotly, “the man was a mere acquaintance; she hadn’t even seen him, except from the stage, for some months past.”

“Oh,” replied Gatton, “is that so?” He looked at me very queerly.  “It doesn’t seem to dovetail with the evidence of the stage-doorkeeper.”

I felt myself changing color, and: 

“What, then, does the stage-doorkeeper assert?” I asked.

Gatton continued to look at me in that perplexed way, and believing that I detected the trend of his reflections: 

“Look here, Inspector,” I said, “let us understand one another.  Whatever may be the evidence of stage-doorkeepers and others, upon one point you can be assured.  Miss Merlin had nothing whatever to do with this horrible crime.  The idea is unthinkable.  So confident am I of this, that you can be perfectly open with me and I give you my word of honor that I shall be equally frank with you.  The truth of the matter cannot possibly injure her in the end and I am as anxious to discover it as you are.”