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Elliot gave a short laugh.
“The war is as good as won!”
Mark said,
“When I’d got that squared I came back and saw Albert. I told him he’d better come clean, and.he did. I don’t know how much he was lying. Not much, I think, but of course he was doing the best for himself. It makes quite a story, but I dare say it’s true, or as near as makes no difference. His mother was ill, and they were awfully poor. He was working for a firm with a good solid co
“It was the fact that, whilst full of information upon every other subject and unusually eager to impart what he knew, Mr. Pearson appeared unable or unwilling to converse upon anything co
“It was frightfully clever of you,” said Lydia.
Miss Silver shook her head in a modest and deprecatory ma
“Oh, no,” she said. “You see, Mr. Pearson’s alibi was naturally a very suspicious circumstance, and yet in a young man so obviously determined to advance himself it really was capable of an i
“It was very, very clever of you,” said Lydia. “We thought Mark was going to be arrested every minute. It was like standing on the edge of a most dreadful precipice and waiting for the fall to begin. I didn’t think anything could be so frightful. And you saved us.”
Mark put his hand on her shoulder again.
Miss Silver beamed upon them.
“Praise is gratifying even when exaggerated. I do not think that Mr. Mark was really in much danger. You see, he was i
All this time Elliot Wray had been silent. He said now,
“And yet he didn’t do it. Or did he?”
Mark started. Lydia said, “Oh!”
Miss Silver gave him a bright attention.
“That is a very interesting remark, Mr. Wray. May I ask what prompted it?”
Elliot leaned forward.
“What was Albert doing in the bathroom?” he said.
Miss Silver coughed.
“I have asked myself that question.”
“He’d got no conceivable reason for being there, you know-unless he was waiting for Mr. Paradine to go out on the terrace. He must have been there for at least five minutes. If he wasn’t waiting for that, what was he waiting for? If he wanted to see Mr. Paradine he had only to open the study door and go in. But he didn’t do that-he hung out of the bathroom window and waited. I say there was only one thing that he could have been waiting for.”
Miss Silver inclined her head.
“That is so. But you are forgetting the direct evidence of Mr. Frank Ambrose. He saw Miss Paradine come out of her sister-in-law’s room, and he saw her push her brother over the parapet. That he did so is an extremely fortunate circumstance for Mr. Pearson, whose presence in the bathroom had already been established by the discovery of one of his prints upon the window frame.”
“What was he doing there?” said Elliot obstinately.
Miss Silver resumed her knitting. The stitches were diminishing to the point of the dark grey toe.
“I can tell you what I think,” she said. “I ca