“I’ve drawn blank, Battle. For the second time I’ve been proved hopelessly wrong. Galling, isn’t it?”
“What was the idea, sir, if I may ask?”
“I suspected the French governess, Battle. A: Upon the grounds of her being the most unlikely person, according to the canons of the best fiction. B: Because there was a light in her room on the night of the tragedy.”
“That wasn’t much to go upon.”
“You are quite right. It was not. But I discovered that she had only been here a short time, and I also found a suspicious Frenchman spying round the place. You know all about him, I suppose?”
“You mean the man who calls himself M. Chelles? Staying at the Cricketers? A traveller in silk.”
“That’s it, is it? What about him? What does Scotland Yard think?”
“His actions have been suspicious,” said Superintendent Battle expressionlessly.
“Very suspicious, I should say. Well, I put two and two together. French governess in the house, French stranger outside. I decided that they were in league together, and I hurried off to interview the lady with whom Mademoiselle Brun had lived for the last ten years. I was fully prepared to find that she had never heard of any such person as Mademoiselle Brun, but I was wrong, Battle. Mademoiselle is the genuine article.”
Battle nodded.
“I must admit,” said Anthony, “that as soon as I spoke to her I had an uneasy conviction that I was barking up the wrong tree. She seemed so absolutely the governess.”