AS FRANK HAD surmised, he did not get away with it. His very creditable assumption that the search of the house would now proceed, and that it would be as well to take Miss Janetta’s room next and get it over, was quite firmly disposed of. March did not exactly say ‘Nothing doing’, but the effect was clearly conveyed. He then passed to his interview with Jerome Pilgrim, and stated that he had asked Miss Day to come down to the study as soon as she was disengaged.
‘She’s doing something for Miss Janetta at the moment, but she said she wouldn’t be very long. When she comes down I shall show her the letter which was found in Clayton’s room and ask her what about it. Miss Silver can be present. Do you know where she is?’
‘Yes—I’ve just left her.’
March did not attempt to conceal a smile.
‘So I imagined! What does she expect to find in Miss Janetta’s room?’
Frank looked over his shoulder. They were in Roger Pilgrim’s room, and he wasn’t certain that the door had latched. When he had made sure, he said, ‘Hashish—bhang—cannabis indica—placed there by Miss Day on the well established principle of hiding a blade of grass in a hay-field. I’m told the place is a regular chemist’s shop.’
‘There is certainly a good deal of what Miss Silver might describe as medical paraphernalia.’
Frank cocked an eyebrow.
‘If you want to quote Miss Silver, I can do it more directly than that. She says if she were Lona she’d be right on the spot at this moment getting rid of the stuff. And right on the spot is just where Lona is. What’s the betting that Miss Netta’s fire is at this moment burning with an exotic eastern flame? I don’t know what hashish burns like, but I should expect it to be something in the green or violet line.’
March looked at him hard.
‘You don’t mean to say you believe this fantastic story!’
He got a shrug of the shoulder.
‘Believe it, or don’t believe it. There isn’t any proof, and I don’t see how there can be. And there is a most convincing scapegoat. Nobody is going to look past Robbins to find a highly chimerical murderer lurking in the background. But it’s rather a staggering thought that perhaps, after all, there is someone there.’
‘It would be.’ March’s tone was studiously quiet.
‘Someone who bumped Henry off in a fit of temper, contrived old Pilgrim’s death, pushed Roger out of the attic window, and then was all ready with her scapegoat. Talk about a ram in a thicket, Robbins fits the part to a hair—hashish in the wash-stand drawer, Henry’s wallet in the chest, and a most convincing suicide to wind up with. Maudie says it happened like that. I don’t say she’s right, but I’ve got a very strong inhibition about saying she’s wrong. And if she isn’t wrong—’ again that slight shrug of the shoulder— ‘if she isn’t—well, we’re letting something loose upon the world. That’s one thing. And here’s another—tigress having tasted blood and got away with it. Cheery prospect, isn’t it? And not a thing that we can do about it so far as I can see, unless that letter knocks her off her balance and she gives herself away.’
March said, ‘That wouldn’t get us very far. She might have written that letter, or twenty others, and yet have no hand in Clayton’s death.’ He changed his tone abruptly. ‘Let’s stick to facts. There’s a case against Robbins that would satisfy any jury in the world. There is no case at all against Lona Day.’