夜雨聆风She was clearly not quite satisfied, and I looked at her in some curiosity.
She hastened to answer my inquiring gaze with a kind of apologetic eager-ness.
“I’ve no doubt I am quite wrong. I’m so stupid about these things. But Ijust wondered—I mean this silver is very valuable, is it not?”
“A tazza sold the other day for over a thousand pounds, I believe.”
“I mean—it’s not the value of the metal.”
“No, it’s what one might call a connoisseur’s value.”
“That’s what I mean. The sale of such things would take a little time toarrange, or even if it was arranged, it couldn’t be carried through withoutsecrecy. I mean—if the robbery were reported and a hue and cry wereraised, well, the things couldn’t be marketed at all.”
“I don’t quite see what you mean?” I said.
“I know I’m putting it badly.” She became more flustered and apolo-getic. “But it seems to me that—that the things couldn’t just have been ab-stracted, so to speak. The only satisfactory thing to do would be to replacethese things with copies. Then, perhaps, the robbery wouldn’t be dis-covered for some time.”
“That’s a very ingenious idea,” I said.
“It would be the only way to do it, wouldn’t it? And if so, of course, asyou say, once the substitution had been accomplished there wouldn’t havebeen any reason for murdering Colonel Protheroe—quite the reverse.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s what I said.”
“Yes, but I just wondered—I don’t know, of course—and Colonel Pro-theroe always talked a lot about doing things before he actually did dothem, and, of course, sometimes never did them at all, but he did say—”
“Yes?”
“That he was going to have all his things valued—a man down fromLondon. For probate — no, that’s when you’re dead — for insurance.
Someone told him that was the thing to do. He talked about it a great deal,and the importance of having it done. Of course, I don’t know if he hadmade any actual arrangements, but if he had….”
“I see,” I said slowly.
“Of course, the moment the expert saw the silver, he’d know, and thenColonel Protheroe would remember having shown the things to Dr. Stone—I wonder if it was done then—legerdemain, don’t they call it? So clever—and then, well, the fat would be in the fire, to use an old-fashioned ex-pression.”
“I see your idea,” I said. “I think we ought to find out for certain.”
I went once more to the telephone. In a few minutes I was through toOld Hall and speaking to Anne Protheroe.
“No, it’s nothing very important. Has the Inspector arrived yet? Oh!
Well, he’s on his way. Mrs. Protheroe, can you tell me if the contents ofOld Hall were ever valued? What’s that you say?”
