“Soon after that, Inez got me to go and see Sir Horace Spavage—the doctor—about father’s health. I couldn’t understand much of what he said—it was rather technical—so I got him to write it down. It amounted to a pretty poor ‘life,’ as the insurance people say. I was taking the note back to Inez when it occurred to me that I might use it as security for raising the money. Most of the money-lenders wouldn’t look at me—I’d borrowed all over the place and they knew that father wouldn’t pay up any more—but that fellow Silence will always go one further than the rest—at a price—and I took the note to him. He advanced me the £15,000 on that—for three months—at a terrific rate of interest. It was a gamble. That’s the awful part about it; I didn’t properly realize it at the time, but of course directly he was dead I did—I was gambling with my father’s life.” Ryland stopped and sat, with haggard face, staring at the cup in front of him. Inez gently squeezed his hand, the others sat in awkward silence. Poole was the first to break it. “Good of you to tell me that, sir,” he said. “I appreciate your telling me—I shouldn’t have asked. Well, it’s your turn now, Miss Fratten.” He looked at his watch. “I can give you ten minutes—I’ve got to catch a train.” “Oh, but I’ve got thousands of questions,” exclaimed Inez. “I want to know about Mr. Hessel—did you know he was in it? I couldn’t make out from the inquest.” “I didn’t know he was Lessingham, if that’s what you mean, Miss Fratten. But I had a very strong suspicion that he was in the plot to kill your father. Not at first—he completely deceived me; but as the actual facts of the murder came out—how it was done and how closely the Wrailes’ alibis fitted to the actual time of the attack—it seemed to me that it couldn’t possibly be a chance that your father and Hessel had walked into the trap at the one and only time that would fit in with the alibis that the Wrailes _had arranged beforehand_—Captain Wraile, remember, had asked someone to visit him at the club at seven, and Mrs. Wraile had to be back in time to see the hall-porter before he went off duty at seven—and couldn’t get away till appreciably after six. No—Sir Garth must have been led at the exactly right moment, into the trap—led by Hessel. I remember now that the first time I interviewed Hessel he told me that your father always walked home across the Park in the evening. That, no doubt, was to make me think that his walk was well known by other people—and on that they based their plan—but the _exactness_ of the time couldn’t have been counted on—it must have been manufactured.