Robin thrust one hand into his right-hand pocket to get his pipe, his other hand into his left-hand pocket to find his pouch. His left hand came into contact with a little ball of paper. He drew it out. It was the little ball of slatey-blue paper he had found on the floor of the library beside Hartley Parrish’s dead body. CHAPTER XII. MR. MANDERTON IS NONPLUSSED Horace Trevert walked abruptly into Mary’s Chinese boudoir. Lady Margaret and the girl were standing by the fire. “Well,” said Horace, dropping into a chair, “he’s gone!” “Who?” said Lady Margaret. “Robin,” answered the boy, “and I must say he took it very well ...” “You don’t mean to tell me, Horace,” said his mother, “that you have actually sent Robin Greve away ...?” Mary Trevert put her hand on her mother’s arm. “I wished it, Mother. I asked Horace to send him away ...” “But, my dear,” protested Lady Margaret. Mary interrupted her impatiently. “Robin Greve was impossible here. I had to ask him to go. I suppose he can come back if ... if they want him for the inquest ...” Lady Margaret was looking at her daughter in a puzzled way. She was a woman of the world and had brought her daughter up to be a woman of the world. She knew that Mary was not impulsive by nature. She knew that there was a wealth of good sense behind those steady eyes. In response to a look from his mother, Horace got up and left the room. “Mary, dear,” said the older woman, “don’t you think you are making a mistake?” The girl turned away, one slim shoe tapping restlessly against the brass rail of the fireplace. “My dear,” her mother went on, “remember I have known Robin Greve all his life. His father, the Admiral, was a very old friend of mine. He was the very personification of honour. Robin is very fond of you ... no, he has told me nothing, but I _know_. Don’t you think it is rather hard on an old friend to turn him away just when you most want him?” There was a heightened colour in the girl’s face as she turned and looked her mother in the face. “Robin has not behaved like a friend, Mother,” she answered. “He knows more than he pretends about ... about this. And he lets me find out things from the servants when he ought to have told me himself. If he is suspected of having said something to Hartley which made him do this dreadful thing, he has only himself to thank. I _did_ try to shield him—before I knew. But I’m not going to do so any more. If he stays I shall have the police suspecting me all the time. And I owe something to Hartley ...” Her mother sighed a soft little sigh. She said nothing. She was a very wise woman. “Robin left me to go to the library ... I am sure of that ...” Mary went on breathlessly. “Why?” her mother asked. The girl hesitated. Then she said slowly: