"Thank you. To stay here will be very convenient and useful," said Mr.
Flexen gratefully, and left her.

He came down the stairs thoughtfully. It seemed to him quite unlikely
that she had had anything to do with the crime, or knew anything more
about it than she had told him. Nevertheless, there was this business of
Colonel Grey and her murdered husband's threat to divorce her. They must
be borne in mind.

He would have been surprised, intrigued, and somewhat shaken in his
conviction that she had been in no way connected with the murder, had he
heard the gasp of intense relief which burst from Olivia's lips when the
door closed behind him, and seen her huddle up in her chair and begin to
cry weakly in the reaction from the strain of his inquisition.




CHAPTER VII


Mr. Flexen found Inspector Perkins waiting for him in the dining-room
with the information that James Hutchings was at his father's cottage in
the West wood, and that he had set one of his detectives to watch him.
Also, he told him that he had learned that Hutchings was generally
disliked in the village as well as at the Castle, as a violent,
bad-tempered man, with a habit of fixing quarrels on any one who would
quarrel with him, and as often as not on mild and inoffensive persons,
quite incapable of bearing themselves in a quarrel with any unpleasant