ew was over,
and I was that glad to get away from him that I walked off without
another word.

CHAPTER XI

SIGNATURES TO THE WILL

I was so knocked out of the usual run of things by this conversation with
Crone that I went away forgetting the bits of stuff I had bought for Tom
Dunlop's rabbit-hutches and Tom himself, and, for that matter, Maisie as
well; and, instead of going back to Dunlop's, I turned down the
riverside, thinking. It was beyond me at that moment to get a clear
understanding of the new situation. I could not make out what Crone was
at. Clearly, he had strong suspicions that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had
something to do with, or some knowledge of, the murder of Phillips, and
he knew now that there were two of us to bear out each other's testimony
that Sir Gilbert was near the scene of the murder at the time it was
committed. Why, then, should he counsel waiting? Why should not the two
of us go to the police and tell what we knew? What was it that Crone
advised we should wait for? Was something going on, some inquiry being
made in the background of things, of which he knew and would not tell me?
And--this, I think, was what was chiefly in my thoughts--was Crone
playing some game of his own and designing to use me as a puppet in it?
For there was a general atmosphere of subtlety and slyness about the man
that forced itself upon me, young as I was; and the way he kept eyeing me
as we talked made me feel that I had to do with one that would be hard to
circumvent if it came to a matter of craftiness. And at last, after a lot
of thinking, as I walked about in the dusk, it struck me that Crone might
be for taking a hand in the game of which I had heard, but had never seen
played--blackmail.

The more I thought over that idea, the more I felt certain of it. His
hints about Sir Gilbert's money and his wealthy wife, his advice to wait
until we knew more, all seemed to point to this--that evidence might
come out which would but require our joint testimony, Crone's and mine,
to make it complete. If that were so, then, of course, Crone or I,
or--as he probably designed--the two of us, would be in a position to go
to Sir Gilbert Carstairs and tell him what we knew, and ask him how much
he would give us to hold our tongues. I saw all the theory of it at
last, clear enough, and it was just what I would have expected of Abel
Crone, knowing him even as little as I did. Wait until we were sure--and
then strike! Th