uarrel with him, and as often as not on mild and inoffensive persons,
quite incapable of bearing themselves in a quarrel with any unpleasant
effectiveness.

Mr. Flexen discussed with the inspector the question of taking out a
warrant for the arrest of Hutchings, and they decided that there was no
need to take the step--at any rate, at the moment; it was enough to have
him watched. He would learn doubtless that it was known that he had been
in the Castle late the night before. If, on learning it, he took fright
and bolted, it would rather simplify the case.

Then Mr. Flexen sent again for Elizabeth Twitcher and questioned her at
length about Lord Loudwater's onslaught on Lady Loudwater the night
before and about the condition in which he had been at the end of it.
Elizabeth was somewhat sulky in her manner, for she felt that she was to
blame for that onslaught having come to Mr. Flexen's ears. She was the
more careful to make it plain that however violently Lord Loudwater may
have been affected, Olivia had taken the business lightly enough, and
decided to ignore his injunction to her to leave the Castle. Mr. Flexen
did not miss the point that Lord Loudwater had threatened to hound
Colonel Grey out of the Army; but at the moment he did not attach
importance to it. It was the kind of threat that an angry man would be
pretty sure to make in the circumstances.

Having dismissed Elizabeth Twitcher, he came to lunch with the impression
strong on him that he had made as much progress as could be expected in
one morning towards the solution of the problem. He was quite undecided
whether Hutchings' presence in the Castle at so late an hour, and the
probability that he had entered and left it by the library window, or the
matter of the woman who had had the stormy interview with the murdered
man, was the more important. It must be his early task to discover who
that woman was.

He found Mr. Manley awaiting him in the little dining-room, ready to play
host. Over their soup and fish they talked about ordinary topics and a
little about themselves. Mr. Manley learned that Mr. Flexen had been in
the Indian Police for over seven years, and had been forced to resign his
post by the breaking down of his health; that during the war he had twice
acted as Chief Constable and three times as stipendiary magistrate in
different districts. Mr. Flexen gathered that Mr. Manley had fought in
France with a brilliant intrepidity which had not met