It is possible that, in thinking this, Antony was doing Inspector Birch a slight injustice.  Birch was certainly prepared to believe that Mark had shot his brother.  Robert had been shown into the office (witness Audrey); Mark had gone in to Robert (witness Cayley); Mark and Robert had been heard talking (witness Elsie); there was a shot (witness everybody); the room had been entered and Robert’s body had been found (witness Cayley and Gillingham).  And Mark was missing.  Obviously, then, Mark had killed his brother:  accidentally, as Cayley believed, or deliberately, as Elsie’s evidence seemed to suggest.  There was no point in looking for a difficult solution to a problem, when the easy solution had no flaw in it.  But at the same time Birch would have preferred the difficult solution, simply because there was more credit attached to it.  A “sensational” arrest of somebody in the house would have given him more pleasure than a commonplace pursuit of Mark Ablett across country.  Mark must be found, guilty or not guilty.  But there were other possibilities.  It would have interested Antony to know that, just at the time when he was feeling rather superior to the prejudiced inspector, the Inspector himself was letting his mind dwell lovingly upon the possibilities in connection with Mr. Gillingham.  Was it only a coincidence that Mr. Gillingham had turned up just when he did?  And Mr. Beverley’s curious answers when asked for some account of his friend.  An assistant in a tobacconist’s, a waiter!  An odd man, Mr. Gillingham, evidently.  It might be as well to keep an eye on him.

CHAPTER VI

Outside Or Inside?

The guests had said good-bye to Cayley, according to their different manner.  The Major, gruff and simple:  “If you want me, command me.  Anything I can do—­Good-bye”; Betty, silently sympathetic, with everything in her large eyes which she was too much overawed to tell; Mrs. Calladine, protesting that she did not know what to say, but apparently finding plenty; and Miss Norris, crowding so much into one despairing gesture that Cayley’s unvarying “Thank you very much” might have been taken this time as gratitude for an artistic entertainment.

Bill had seen them into the car, had taken his own farewells (with a special squeeze of the hand for Betty), and had wandered out to join Antony on his garden seat.

“Well, this is a rum show,” said Bill as he sat down.

“Very rum, William.”

“And you actually walked right into it?”

“Right into it,” said Antony.

“Then you’re the man I want.  There are all sorts of rumours and mysteries about, and that inspector fellow simply wouldn’t keep to the point when I wanted to ask him about the murder, or whatever it is, but kept asking me questions about where I’d met you first, and all sorts of dull things like that.  Now, what really happened?”