SIGNATURES TO THE WILL I was so knocked out of the usual run of things by this conversation with Crone that I went away forgetting the bits of stuff I had bought for Tom Dunlop's rabbit-hutches and Tom himself, and, for that matter, Maisie as well; and, instead of going back to Dunlop's, I turned down the riverside, thinking.

It was beyond me at that moment to get a clear understanding of the new situation.

I could not make out what Crone was at.

Clearly, he had strong suspicions that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had something to do with, or some knowledge of, the murder of Phillips, and he knew now that there were two of us to bear out each other's testimony that Sir Gilbert was near the scene of the murder at the time it was committed.

Why, then, should he counsel waiting?
Why should not the two of us go to the police and tell what we knew?
What was it that Crone advised we should wait for?
Was something going on, some inquiry being made in the background of things, of which he knew and would not tell me?
And--this, I think, was what was chiefly in my thoughts--was Crone playing some game of his own and designing to use me as a puppet in it?
For there was a general atmosphere of subtlety and slyness about the man that forced itself upon me, young as I was; and the way he kept eyeing me as we talked made me feel that I had to do with one that would be hard to circumvent if it came to a matter of craftiness.