"Who told you?"
"Le Hagen--the solicitor, you know. He acted for this Malpas woman on one or two occasions."
"When did she die?"
"Six or seven months ago ..."
"Did Jeekes know about it?"
"Jeekes? Do you mean Parrish"s secretary?
"It"s funny your asking that. As a matter of fact, it was through Jeekes that I heard the lady was dead. I was in Le Hagen"s office one day when Jeekes came in, and Le Hagen told me Jeekes had come to pay in a cheque for the cost of the funeral and the transport of the body to France."
"This was six or seven months ago, you say? I take it, then, that any allowance that Parrish was in the habit of making to this woman has ceased?"
"I tell you the lady is dead!"
"Then what would you say if I informed you that Mr. Jeekes had declared that these payments were still going on ..."
Robin shrugged his shoulders.
"I should say he was lying ..."
"I agree. But why?"
"Whom did he tell this to?"
"Miss Trevert!"
"Miss Trevert?"
Robin repeated the name in amazement.
"I don"t understand," he said. "Why on earth should Jeekes blacken his employer"s character to Miss Trevert? What conceivable motive could he have had? Did she tell you this?"
"No," said Manderton; "I heard him tell her myself."
"Do you mean to tell me," protested Robin, growing more and more puzzled, "that Jeekes told Miss Trevert this offensive and deliberate lie in your presence!"
"Well," remarked Mr. Manderton slowly, "I don"t know about his saying this in my presence exactly. But I heard him tell her for all that.
Walls have ears, you know--particularly if the door is ajar!"
He looked shrewdly at Robin, then dropped his eyes to the floor.
"He also told her that Le Hagen and you were in business relations ..."
Robin sat up at this.
"Ah!" he said shortly. "I see what you"re getting at now. Our friend has been trying to set Miss Trevert against me, eh? But why? I don"t even know this man Jeekes except to have nodded "Good-morning" to him a few times. Why on earth should he of all men go out of his way to slander me to Miss Trevert, to throw suspicion ..."
He broke off short and looked at the detective.
Mr. Manderton caressed his big black moustache.
"Yes," he repeated suavely, "you were saying "to cast suspicion" ..."
The eyes of the two men met. Then the detective leaned back in his chair and, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips, said:
"Mr. Greve, you"ve been thinking ahead of me on this case. What you"ve told me so far I"ve checked. And you"re right. Dead right. And since you"re, in a manner of speaking, one of the parties interested in getting things cleared up, I"d like you to tell me just simply what idea you"ve formed about it ..."
"Gladly," answered the barrister. "And to start with let me tell you that the case stinks of blackmail ..."
"Steady on," interposed the detective. "I thought so, too, at first.
I"ve been into all that. Mr. Parrish made a clean break with the last of his lady friends about two months since; and, as far as our investigations go, there has been no blackmail in connection with any of his women pals. Vine Street knows all about Master Parrish. There were complaints about some of his little parties up in town. But I don"t believe there"s a woman in this case ..."
"I didn"t say there was," retorted Robin. "The blackmail is probably being levied from Holland. A threat of violence was finally carried into effect on Sat.u.r.day evening between 5 and 5.15 P.M. by some one conversant with the lie of the land at Harkings. This individual, armed with an automatic Browning of the same calibre as Mr. Parrish"s, shot at Parrish through the open window of the library and killed him--probably in self-defence, after Parrish had had a shot at him ..."
"Steady there, whoa!" said Mr. Manderton in a jocular way clearly expressive of his incredulity; "there was only one shot ..."
"There were _two_," was Robin"s dispa.s.sionate reply. "Though maybe only one was heard. Parrish had a Maxim silencer on his gun ..."
Mr. Manderton was now thoroughly alert.
"How did you find that out?" he asked.
"Jay, Parrish"s man, came forward and volunteered this evidence ..."
"He said nothing about it when I questioned him," grumbled the detective.
Robin laughed.
"You"re a terror to the confirmed criminal, they tell me, Manderton," he said, "but you obviously don"t understand that complicated mechanism known as the domestic servant. No servant at Harkings will voluntarily tell _you_ anything ..."
Mr. Manderton, who had stood up, shook his big frame impatiently.
"Explain the rest of your theories," he said harshly. "What"s all this about blackmail being levied from Holland?"
Then Robin Greve told him of the letters written on the slatey-blue paper and of their effect upon Parrish, and of the letter headed, "Elias van der Spyck & Co., General Importers, Rotterdam," which had lain on the desk in the library when Parrish"s dead body had been found.
Manderton nodded gloomily.
"It was there right enough," he remarked. "I saw it. A letter about steel shipments and the dockers" strike, wasn"t it? As there seemed nothing to it, I left it with the other papers for Jeekes, the secretary chap. But what evidence is there that this was blackmail?"
"This," said Robin, and showed the detective the sheet of blue paper with its series of slits. "Manderton," he said, "these letters written on this blue paper were in code, I feel sure. Why should not this be the key? You see it bears a date--"Nov. 25." May it not refer to that letter? I found it by Parrish"s body on the carpet in the library. I would have given it to you at Harkings, but I shoved it in my pocket and forgot all about it until I was in the train coming up to town this morning."
Mr. Manderton took the sheet of paper, turned it over, and held it up to the light. Then, without comment, he put it away in the pocket of his jacket.
"If Parrish killed himself," Robin went on earnestly, "that letter drove him to it. If, on the other hand, he was murdered, may not that letter have contained a warning?"