Chapter Three
N eele pushed the telephone away and looked sharply at Miss Griffith.
“So they’ve been worried about him lately,” he said. “Wanted him to see a doctor. You didn’t tell me that.”
“I didn’t think of it,” said Miss Griffith, and added: “He never seemed to me really ill—”
“Not ill—but what?”
“Well, just off. Unlike himself. Peculiar¹ in his manner.”
“Worried about something?”
“Oh no, not worried. It’s we who were worried—”
Inspector² Neele waited patiently.
“It’s difficult to say, really,” said Miss Griffith. “He had moods, you know. Sometimes he was quite boisterous³.
Once or twice, frankly⁴, I thought he had been drinking . . . He boasted and told the most extraordinary stories whichI’m sure couldn’t possibly have been true. For most of the time I’ve been here he was always very close about hisaffairs—not giving anything away, you know. But lately he’s been quite different, expansive, and positively—well—flinging money about. Most unlike his usual manner. Why, when the office boy had to go to his grandmother’s funeral,Mr. Fortescue called him in and gave him a five pound note and told him to put it on the second favourite and thenroared with laughter. He wasn’t—well, he just wasn’t like himself. That’s all I can say.”
“As though, perhaps, he had something on his mind?”
“Not in the usual meaning of the term. It was as though he were looking forward to something pleasurable—exciting—”
“Possibly a big deal that he was going to pull off?”
Miss Griffith agreed with more conviction.
“Yes—yes, that’s much more what I mean. As though everyday things didn’t matter anymore. He was excited. Andsome very odd-looking people came to see him on business. People who’d never been here before. It worried Mr.
Percival dreadfully.”
“Oh, it worried him, did it?”
“Yes. Mr. Percival’s always been very much in his father’s confidence, you see. His father relied on him. But lately—”
“Lately they weren’t getting along so well.”

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