It had never occurred to me to think of Haydock as sad. I turned the idea over in my mind.
“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it,” I said at last.
“I never have, until today.”
“One’s own troubles sharpen one’s eyes sometimes,” I said.
“That’s very true.”
She paused and then said:
“ Mr. Clement, there’s one thing I absolutely cannot make out. If my husband were shot immediately after I left him, how was it that I didn’t hear the shot?”
“They have reason to believe that the shot was fired later.”
“But the 6:20 on the note?”
“Was possibly added by a different hand—the murderer’s.”
Her cheek paled.
“How horrible!”
“It didn’t strike you that the date was not in his handwriting?”
“None of it looked like his handwriting.”
There was some truth in this observation. It was a somewhat illegible scrawl, not so precise as Protheroe’s writing usually was.
“You are sure they don’t still suspect Lawrence?”
“I think he is definitely cleared.”