Of the four of us sitting there I alone had instantly realized what must have happened. Our Nosey Parker of a Westbury had been at work already. I remembered the dull insistence of the man and how he had said in my hearing that he and Inspector Webster "would be having a bit of a talk that evening." I recalled also the stupid but dangerous cunning with which he had repeated over and over again that Rooke had been the first on the scene of the accident. Well, he hadn't lost very much time. The Inspector had stood there in the doorway, and neither Esdaile, Hubbard nor Rooke had had the least idea why.

Now there are a good many of the commonly-accepted views on physiognomy that I for one don't share. One of these is about rather narrowly-set eyes. Webster, who was a very big red-and-black man, had these eyes under a sort of bison-front of close-curling hair, but I did not associate them with meanness and slyness at all. On the contrary, they had rather a kindly glint, and they reminded me of the infinitesimal slight cast that at certain moments makes some women irresistible. No, I did not set Inspector Webster down as a bad sort. At the same time there was no nonsense about him, and I should have thought twice before trying any tricks with him.

I was more thankful than I can tell you that Philip also, in spite of the emotional gamut he had run that day, still had resilience enough to sum the Inspector up very much as I did. There was no bland "Well, Inspector, and to what are we indebted for the pleasure of this visit?" nor anything of that kind. Perhaps that dangerous pistol, X-raying itself so plainly in our minds through the top of the escritoire, had forbidden any such attitude. I now know, as a matter of fact, the life-line on to which he had immediately and instinctively laid hold. Inspector Webster, whatever he had come for, was to be treated exactly as the women were to be treated, and the accident-theory was to hold the field.

So this is what had happened:—

The Inspector, after a few conventional remarks about being sorry to trouble us gentlemen for the second time that day and so on, had come down like a hammer straight upon our weakest point. This was the part that Monty Rooke had played in that morning's events. First of all he wanted (with our permission) to put a few words to Mr. Rooke. I think he used the word "permission" in good faith, and not as any kind of a veiled threat.

I saw Monty moisten his lips. He has since explained the swiftness with which he also was able to come into line and to play up so really nobly as he did. Philip, if you remember, had forbidden him pretty gruffly to say one word about all this to Audrey Cunningham; it is no light matter to dictate to another man what he shall say and what he shall not say to his fiancÉe; and this it was that saved the situation. If Monty was to be ordered to keep his mouth shut before his fiancÉe he was jolly well not going to be pumped by an outsider, Police Inspector or no Police Inspector. On such hairs do our actions hang sometimes.

"Fire away," he had said.

"Well, sir, to begin with, would you be so kind as to tell me in your own words exactly what you saw on the roof this morning?"

"Certainly," Monty had replied.

And he had launched out.

From the point of view of the things he omitted I can only describe his performance as brilliant. Camouflage was certainly Monty's war-job. Not one single word was there about bullet-holes, cartridge-cases or pistols. Had there been a polar bear or a pterodactyl on the roof it might have been worth mentioning, but a pistol—no.

My only fear was lest he should be so pleased with his own performance as to undo it again out of sheer satisfaction presently.

"Thank you very much indeed, sir," said the Inspector. "I asked you for your own words and you've given them. Now I wonder if I might be allowed to ask you one or two questions?"

"Fire away," said Monty again.

But here the Inspector himself had seemed to be in some slight difficulty. Apparently for some reason he wasn't very anxious to speak of pistols either. Polar bears or pterodactyls, yes; but not pistols. I have since thought that, as a man of some penetration, he also might have had his private opinion about Mr. Harry Westbury, and thought it best to act on anything Westbury said with caution.

Nevertheless, the series of questions that had followed had all been in the very close neighborhood of pistols, so to speak. I itemize what struck me as being their real, if unuttered trend.

"About this man that's dead, Mr. Rooke. You saw his face, of course?"

(Item: Had Maxwell been shot through the head?)

Yes, Monty had seen his face, but so, he ventured to remind the Inspector, had he himself.

"Well, say I had other things to attend to and didn't particularly notice. You'd say he was—pretty bad?"

(Item: So bad that there might have been a little hole on one side of his head and a big one on the other without your noticing it?)

"Rotten," said Monty with an unaffected shiver.

"Bleeding much?"

(Item: Or anything else scattered about?)

"No."

"Clothes singed?"

(Item: If not through the head, perhaps through the body?)

"Yes. Badly. Bits of the parachute too."

"From where you were on the roof lots of people could see you?"

(Item: If you'd done anything you'd no business to do, for instance?)

"Any number of people I should say," Monty had replied rather faintly. "But I don't see what you're getting at. You were up there too. What is it all about?"

And here Philip had seen fit to intervene, rather quickly.

"Yes, that's what I'm wondering, Inspector. Is it a proper question to ask? And is it proper to ask you if you'd like a glass of whisky, by the way?"

The narrow eyes had twinkled. "Not supposed to, sir——"

"Right. Say when——"

And so our healths had been drunk.

"You see," Philip had resumed presently, "I understood from Mr. Mackwith this morning—you knew that was Mr. Mackwith, K.C., you were talking to, didn't you—the tall man in morning-coat and spats?"

"Was he indeed, sir?"

"Yes, that was Mr. Mackwith, and I understood from him that you had said you had all the evidence you wanted?"

The Inspector had been sitting with his cap on his knees and the glass of whisky inside it like a flowerpot in a vase. He had ruminated.

"Well," he had said suddenly, "the fact is that that was this morning, gentlemen. Since then a certain piece of information's been laid in connection with this affair. I'm not at liberty to say what this information is, nor whether we shall act on it or not, but the Law's for the protection of us all, gentlemen, and I take it all of us wants to do our best to maintain it. Even if it meant the inconvenience," he added deliberately, "of a warrant for the search of these premises."

Here the sorely-tried Philip had given a wild laugh.

"Search these premises! Search 'em now if you like. But in God's name what for?"

"Accidents aren't always what they seem, sir," Inspector Webster had replied.