Beginning abruptly and scribbled on a
torn scrap of paper, it ran:
"I found Clive where you said, lucky you got hold of the note and
read it before she sent it, for no doubt she meant to warn him.
Take care she gets no chance of the sort again. I did Clive's
business all right. She saw me and I think recognized me from that
time she saw me over the packing-case business, before I took it
out to sink it at sea. At any rate, she ran off in a great hurry.
If you aren't careful, she'll make trouble yet."
"Apparently," remarked the inspector when he had read this aloud,
"the young lady was very luckily not watched closely enough and
did make trouble for them. Could I see her, do you think?"
"I don't know, I'll go and ask," Rupert said.
Ella was still very shaken, but she consented to see the inspector,
and they all went together to her room where she was lying on her
bed with her mother fussing nervously about her.
She told them in as few words as possible the story of how she had
always disliked and mistrusted the man whom so unfortunately her
mother had married, and how gradually her suspicions strengthened
till she became certain that he was involved in many unlawful deeds.
But always her inner certainty had fallen short of absolute proof,
so careful had he been in all he did.
"I knew I knew," she said. "But there was nothing I really knew.
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