“I don’t rightly know that this concerns me, gentlemen,” he said slowly. “I think I’ll just take charge of it. And I’ll give Miss Trevert her letter.” Taking the two envelopes, he tramped heavily out of the room. Then in a little while Bude and Jay and two bucolic-looking policemen came to the library to move the body of the master of Harkings. Robin stood by and watched the little procession pass slowly with silent feet across the soft pile carpet and out into the corridor. But his thoughts were not with Parrish. He was haunted by the look which Mary Trevert had given him as she had stood for an instant at the library door, a look of fear, of suspicion. And it made his heart ache. CHAPTER VI. THE LETTER The great drawing-room of Harkings was ablaze with light. The cluster of lights in the heavy crystal chandelier and the green-shaded electric lamps in their gilt sconces on the plain white-panelled walls coldly lit up the formal, little-used room with its gilt furniture, painted piano, and huge marble fireplace. This glittering Louis Seize environment seemed altogether too much for the homely Inspector. Whilst waiting for Mary Trevert to come to him, he tried several attitudes in turn. The empty hearth frightened him away from the mantelpiece, the fragile appearance of a gilt settee decided him against risking his sixteen stone weight on its silken cushions, and the vastness of the room overawed him when he took up his position in the centre of the Aubusson carpet. Finally he selected an ornate chair, rather more solid-looking than the rest, which he drew up to a small table on the far side of the room. There he sat down, his large red hands spread out upon his knees in an attitude of singular embarrassment. But Mary Trevert set him quickly at his ease when presently she came to him. She was pale, but quite self-possessed. Indeed, the effort she had made to regain her self-control was so marked that it would have scarcely escaped the attention of the Inspector, even if he had not had a brief vision of her as she had stood for that instant at the library door, pale, distraught, and trembling. He was astonished to find her cool, collected, almost business-like in the way she sat down, motioned him to his seat, and expressed her readiness to tell him all she knew. The phrases he had been laboriously preparing—“This has been a bad shock for you, ma’am”; “You will forgive me, I’m sure, ma’am, for calling upon you at a moment such as this”—died away on his lips as Mary Trevert said: “Ask me any questions you wish, Inspector. I will tell you everything I can.” “That’s very good of you, ma’am, I’m sure,” answered the Inspector, unstrapping his notebook, “and I’ll try and not detain you long. Now, then, tell me what you know of this sad affair ...” Mary Trevert plucked an instant nervously at her little cambric handerchief in her lap. Then she said: “I went to the library from the billiard-room ...”