Ten THE PEARSON FAMILY

Inspector¹ Narracott’s next move was to report to his superior, Superin-tendent Maxwell.
The latter listened with interest to the Inspector’s narrative².
“It’s going to be a big case,” he said thoughtfully. “There’ll be headlinesin the papers over this.”
“I agree with you, sir.”
“We’ve got to be careful. We don’t want to make any mistake. But Ithink you’re on the right track. You must get after this James Pearson assoon as possible—find out where he was yesterday afternoon. As you say,it’s a common enough name, but there’s the Christian³ name as well. Ofcourse, his signing his own name openly like that shows there wasn’t anypremeditation about it. He’d hardly have been such a fool otherwise. Itlooks to me like a quarrel and a sudden blow. If it is the man, he musthave heard of his uncle’s death that night. And if so, why did he sneak⁴ offby the six train in the morning without a word to anyone? No, it looks bad.
Always granting that the whole thing’s not a coincidence. You must clearthat up as quickly as possible.”
“That’s what I thought, sir. I’d better take the 1:45 to town. Some time orother I want to have a word with this Willett woman who rented the Cap-tain’s house. There’s something fishy⁵ there. But I can’t get to Sittaford atpresent, the roads are impassable with snow. And anyway, she can’t haveany direct connection with the crime. She and her daughter were actually—well—table-turning at the time the crime was committed. And, by theway, rather a queer thing happened—”
The Inspector narrated⁶ the story he had heard from Major Burnaby.
“That’s a rum go,” ejaculated the Superintendent⁷. “Think this old fellowwas telling the truth? That’s the sort of story that gets cooked up after-wards by those believers in spooks and things of that kind.”

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