“I object to my girl picking up with men outside her own station.”
“It was your prejudice against him which prevented us from telling you. As to this appointment”—she fumbled in her dress and produced a crumpled note—“it was in answer to this.”
Dearest [ran the message]:
The old place on the beach just after sunset on Tuesday. It is the only time I can get away.
“Tuesday was today, and I had meant to meet him tonight.”
I turned over the paper. “This never came by post. How did you get it?”
“I would rather not answer that question. It has really nothing to do with the matter which you are investigating. But anything which bears upon that I will most freely answer.”
She was as good as her word, but there was nothing which was helpful in our investigation. She had no reason to think that her fiancé had any hidden enemy, but she admitted that she had had several warm admirers.
“May I ask if Mr. Ian Murdoch was one of them?”
She blushed and seemed confused.
“There was a time when I thought he was. But that was all changed when he understood the relations between Fitzroy and myself.”
Again the shadow round this strange man seemed to me to be taking more definite shape. His record must be examined. His rooms must be privately searched. Stackhurst was a willing collaborator, for in his mind also suspicions were forming. We returned from our visit to The Haven with the hope that one free end of this tangled skein was already in our hands.