Arnold swung himself up on to the top of a barrel and sat looking down at his companion.

“Mr. Jarvis,” he said, “you and I see this matter, naturally, from very different standpoints.  You have known Mr. Weatherley for thirty-five years.  I have known him for four months, and he never spoke a word to me until a few days ago.  Practically, therefore, I have known Mr. and Mrs. Weatherley the same length of time.  Under the circumstances, I must tell you frankly that my sympathies are with Mrs. Weatherley.  Not only have I found her a very charming woman, but she has been most unnecessarily kind to me.”

Mr. Jarvis was silent for a moment.

“I had forgotten,” he admitted, “that that might be your point of view.  It isn’t, of course, possible to look for any feeling of loyalty for the chief from any one who has only been here a matter of a few months.  Perhaps I was wrong to have spoken to you at all, Chetwode.”

“If there is anything I can do,” Arnold began,—­

“It’s in this way,” Mr. Jarvis interrupted.  “Owing, I dare say, to Mrs. Weatherley, you have certainly been put in a unique position here.  You see more of Mr. Weatherley now than any one of us.  For that reason I was anxious to make a confidant of you.  I tell you that I am worried about Mr. Weatherley.  He is a rich man and a prosperous man.  There is no reason why he should sit in his office and gaze into the fire and look out of the window as though the place were full of shadows and he hated the sight of them.  Yet that is what he does nowadays, Chetwode.  What does it mean?  I ask you frankly.  Haven’t you noticed yourself that his behavior is peculiar?”

“Now you mention it,” Arnold replied, “I certainly have noticed that he was very strange in his manner this morning.  He seemed very upset about that Rosario murder.  Mr. Rosario was at his house the other night, you know.  Were they great friends, do you think?”

Mr. Jarvis shook his head.

“Not at all,” he said.  “He was simply, I believe, one of Mrs. Weatherley’s society acquaintances.  But that there’s something gone wrong with Mr. Weatherley, no one would deny who sees him as he is now and knows him as he was a year or so ago.  There’s Johnson, the foreman packer, who’s been here as long as I have; and Elwick, the carter; and Huemmel, in the export department;—­we’ve all been talking together about this.”

“He doesn’t speculate, I suppose?” Arnold enquired.

“Not a ha’penny,” Mr. Jarvis replied, fervently.  “He has spent large sums of money since his marriage, but he can afford it.  It isn’t money that’s worrying him.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t hit it off with his wife,” Arnold remarked.

Mr. Jarvis drew a little breath.  For a moment he was speechless.  To him it seemed something like profanity that this young man should make so casual a suggestion.

“Mrs. Weatherley, sir,” he declared, “was, I believe, without any means whatever when Mr. Weatherley made her his wife.  Mr. Weatherley, as you know, is at the head of this house, the house of Samuel Weatherley & Co., bankers Lloyds.  It should be the business of the lady, sir, to see that she hits it off, as you put it, with a husband who has done her so much honor.”