The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5286]
"Thank you, Mr. Harley," he said, and carried his wife from the room.
Harley dropped his arm, and crossing, stood staring out of the window. Inspector Aylesbury ran heavily to the door.
"Sergeant!" he called, "Sergeant! keep that man in sight. He must return here immediately."
I heard the sound of heavy footsteps following Camber's up the stairs, then Inspector Aylesbury turned, a bulky figure in the open doorway, and:
"Now, Mr. Harley," said he, entering and reclosing the door, "you are a barrister, I understand. Very well, then, I suppose you are aware that you have resisted and obstructed an officer of the law in the execution of his duty."
Paul Harley spun round upon his heel.
"Is that a charge," he inquired, "or merely a warning?"
The two glared at one another for a moment, then:
"From now onward," continued the Inspector, "I am going to have no more trouble with you, Mr. Harley. In the first place, I'll have you looked up in the Law List; in the second place, I shall ask you to stick to your proper duties, and leave me to look after mine."
"I have endeavoured from the outset," replied Harley, his good humour quite restored, "to assist you in every way in my power. You have declined all my offers, and finally, upon the most flimsy evidence, you have detained a perfectly innocent man."
"Oh, I see. A perfectly innocent man, eh?"
"Perfectly innocent, Inspector. There are so many points that you have overlooked. For instance, do you seriously suppose that Mr. Camber had been waiting up here night after night on the off-chance that Colonel Menendez would appear in the grounds of Cray's Folly?"
"No, I don't. I have got that worked out."
"Indeed? You interest me."
"Mr. Camber has an accomplice at Cray's Folly."
"What?" exclaimed Harley, and into his keen grey eyes crept a look of real interest.
"He has an accomplice," repeated the Inspector. "A certain witness was strangely reluctant to mention Mr. Camber's name. It was only after very keen examination that I got it at last. Now, Colonel Menendez had not retired last night, neither had a certain other party. That other party, sir, knows why Colonel Menendez was wandering about the garden at midnight."
At first, I think, this astonishing innuendo did not fully penetrate to my mind, but when it did so, it seemed to galvanize me. Springing up from the chair in which I had been seated:
"You preposterous fool!" I exclaimed, hotly.
It was the last straw. Inspector Aylesbury strode to the door and throwing it open once more, turned to me:
"Be good enough to leave the house, Mr. Knox," he said. "I am about to have it officially searched, and I will have no strangers present."
I think I could have strangled him with pleasure, but even in my rage I was not foolhardy enough to lay myself open to that of which the Inspector was quite capable at this moment.
Without another word I walked out of the study, took my hat and stick, and opening the front door, quitted the Guest House, from which I had thus a second time been dismissed ignominiously.
Appreciation of this fact, which came to me as I stepped into the porch, awakened my sense of humour--a gift truly divine which has saved many a man from desperation or worse. I felt like a schoolboy who had been turned out of a class-room, and I was glad that I could laugh at myself.
A constable was standing in the porch, and he looked at me suspiciously. No doubt he perceived something very sardonic in my merriment.
I walked out of the gate, before which a car was standing, and as I paused to light a cigarette I heard the door of the Guest House open and close. I glanced back, and there was Paul Harley coming to join me.
"Now, Knox," he said, briskly, "we have got our hands full."
"My dear Harley, I am both angry and bewildered. Too angry and too bewildered to think clearly."
"I can quite understand it. I should become homicidal if I were forced to submit for long to the