general air of likelihood, but if I had been in their place, I should have
demanded evidence before I drew much consolation from so unsupported a
conclusion.

I joined young Turnbull.

"Good idea of yours, Melhuish," Ronnie said.

Frank grunted.

"I've no sort of grounds for it, you know," I explained. "It was only a
casual suggestion."

"Jolly convincing one, though," Turnbull congratulated me. "So exactly the
sort of thing she would do, isn't it, Frank?"

"Shouldn't have thought she'd have been gone so long," Jervaise replied.
He looked at me as he continued, "And how does it fit with that notion of
ours about Miss Banks having expected her?"

"That was only a guess," I argued.

"Better evidence for it than you had for your guess," he returned, and we
drifted into an indeterminate wrangle, each of us defending his own theory
rather because he had had the glory of originating it than because either
of us had, I think, the least faith in our explanations.

It was Ronnie who, picking up the thread of our deductions from the Home
Farm interview in the course of our discussion, sought to reconcile us and
our theories.