“Of course I can,” snapped Willoughby, “and can’t _you_ see that’s just the reason why a decent chap doesn’t want to do it. It’s to my advantage and consequently to somebody else’s detriment. That’s just the point.” He stopped again and bit his lip. “Well, I suppose there’s no help for it that I can see. I’ll tell you the whole story. My cousin is the well-known trainer of racehorses—Phipps-Holloway. He doesn’t send out too many winners as he hasn’t got a very big string now. But occasionally he pulls off a ‘coup’—usually with a dark two-year-old. He pulled one off at the Newmarket First July Meeting. He had a colt engaged in the July Stakes—‘Sherlock Holmes,’ by ‘Hurry On,’ out of ‘Popingaol.’” Bannister winced; he regarded it as a most unfortunate allusion. “He had won a good trial the week before and ‘Lobster’ gave me the tip. ‘Lobster’s’ my cousin. The colt opened at ‘tens’ but somebody evidently had got wind of the good thing—for when ‘The Blower’ money got wafted back on to the course—he came down ‘with a rush’ to ‘fives’ and actually started second favourite. I only got S.P. myself. I had a modest little tenner on—so I had fifty quid to draw. I drew it. Off my bookmaker, here in Seabourne. I’ve an arrangement that he pays all winnings in cash. That’s all there is to it.” “Off your bookmaker?” yelled Bannister. “Who in thunder’s he?” Willoughby took out his pocket-book and handed Bannister the usual card of the ordinary “Turf Accountant.” “Jacob Morley, 9, Macbeth Court Mansions, Seabourne.” Sergeant Godfrey was unable to restrain his excitement. “Jacob Morley,” he cried, with a ring of triumph in his voice. “Jacob Morley! Don’t you remember—Branston’s story the night we first investigated the murder?” Bannister nodded complacently. “I do,” he rejoined very quietly. “Jacob Morley was the name of the patient who had an appointment with Branston at the identical time that Sheila Delaney was found murdered. He must have kept that appointment after all!” Chapter XVIII That Leads Round the Mulberry-Bush “What do you mean, exactly?” queried Sergeant Godfrey. “If you cast your mind back, Godfrey,” enlarged Bannister, “Branston’s evidence was pretty much as follows. When he was released from the work-room by his housekeeper after his unexpected imprisonment he rushed to the room where he found Miss Delaney lying dead. Then he described what happened afterwards as a ‘schemozzle.’ That was the actual word used. When I asked him if the gentleman arrived whom he was expecting at half-past two he stated that he never gave him another thought—he lost all sense of the impending appointment as it were. ‘I clean forgot him,’ he said. ‘If he came he probably went away’—that was the gist of what Branston said, and it struck me as being perfectly natural.” Godfrey nodded, affirmatively.