He paused, and then said gravely:
“This is between you and me, Clement. Mrs. Lestrange is doomed.”
“What?”
“She’s a dying woman. I give her a month at longest. Do you wonder that I want to keep her from being badgered and questioned?”
He went on:
“When she turned into this road that evening it was here she came—to this house.”
“You haven’t said so before.”
“I didn’t want to create talk. Six to seven isn’t my time for seeing patients, and everyone knows that. But you can take my word for it that she was here.”
“She wasn’t here when I came for you, though. I mean, when we discovered the body.”
“No,” he seemed perturbed. “She’d left—to keep an appointment.”
“In what direction was the appointment? In her own house?”
“I don’t know, Clement. On my honour, I don’t know.”
I believed him, but—
“And supposing an innocent man is hanged?” I said.
“No,” he said. “No one will be hanged for the murder of Colonel Protheroe. You can take my word for that.”
But that is just what I could not do. And yet the certainty in his voice was very great.