Free The Silk Stocking Murders by Anthony Berkeley

purpose.”
    “But how could he have known that she was going to the studio? She never said anything about it to her friends. Probably she didn’t know herself. She passed by on her way out of London and called in to see if the girl would go for a run with her.”
    “That’s possible, of course, but we mustn’t lose sight of the notion that she had an assignation there, knowing her friend was going to be out, and all that talk about the run was to put the others off the scent. She’d guess well enough that none of them would go with her.”
    “Humph!” said Roger, who was quite willing to lose sight of that notion, in which he did not believe for a moment. “By the way,” he went on, as a memory occurred to him, “I’ve a shrewd idea that that fellow she was engaged to—what’s his name? Pleydell—has his suspicions. Did you notice him in the court this morning? Half a dozen times he seemed to me on the verge of saying something significant.”
    “Yes, I thought he might have something in his mind. I was going to have a talk with him to-morrow morning.”
    “It’s a rotten position for him,” Roger said thoughtfully. “And it’ll be rottener still if he has got a suspicion that everything isn’t as straightforward as it might be. To have one’s fiancée commit suicide is bad enough, but to have her murdered!… Look here, Moresby, why not hold up your talk with him for a day or two?”
    “Why, Mr. Sheringham?”
    “Well, it’s rather a nice point. If he
has
got his suspicions, you see, would he let things stay as they are, to save her family any further scandal, or would he do his damnedest to get at the truth? In my opinion he’d want the truth. But he’s not going to be quite sure at first what he wants. Well, if you descend on him before he’s made up his mind, he might be driven into holding his tongue. A sort of counter-instinct, you know. And if he’s got anything to tell us that would be a pity. On the other hand, if you leave him till he’s quite clear about it, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t come to you; and in that case you’d get far more out of him than in any other way. This is all on the assumption that he
is
suspicious, of course, which may not be the case at all.”
    The Chief Inspector consumed a little more beer. “There’s a good deal in that,” he admitted, wiping his mouth delicately on a large blue silk handkerchief. “Yes, perhaps I was a little hasty, and that’s the one thing we ought not to be. Very well, I’ll give him three days and see if you’re right. It’ll be a feather in your cap if you are.”
    Roger looked over the notes he had been taking of the conversation. “Well, what it seems to amount to,” he said, “is that we’ve got to look for a man who touches our circle at various points, including Monte Carlo last February. He’s probably a hefty fellow, and a gentleman (or passing for one), and we can’t necessarily expect anything abnormal in his mental make-up except on this one topic. If we narrow our search down to one man, I shall try to get him to talk on that topic (which won’t be too easy to introduce, by the way), and if he gives himself away we can be pretty certain we’re on the right track.”
    “And then we’ve got to prove it against him,” added the Chief Inspector with gloom, “and that’s going to be the most difficult job of the lot. If you’d been at the Yard as long as I have, Mr. Sheringham, you’d know that—— Hullo, isn’t that your telephone?”
    Roger rose and went to the instrument in his study adjoining. In a moment he was back. “For you, Moresby,” he said. “Scotland Yard.”
    Moresby went out of the room.
    When he returned a few minutes later, his face bore an expression of rather reluctant admiration. “That was a smart bit of psychological deduction you put in only a few minutes ago, Mr. Sheringham,” he said.
    “What do you mean?” Roger asked, agog.
    The Chief Inspector