At the same time it made him feel angry. Also callow. He would have liked to blurt out the truth in one overwhelming, incontrovertible statement; but the truth was not like that. It never was. The fact he knew, or guessed, about Mary, the fact these two men were conspiring to ignore, could be stated easily enough. But the important thing, the thing that really mattered, so it seemed to him, was to understand the background, the circumstances, the characters of Dick and Mary, the pattern of their lives. And it was not so easy to do. He had arrived at the truth circuitously: circuitously it would have to be explained. And his chief emotion, which was an impersonal pity for Mary and Dick and the native, a pity that was also rage against circumstances, made it difficult for him to know where to begin.

`Look,' he said, `I'll tell you what I know from the beginning, only it will take some time, I am afraid…'

`You mean you know why Mrs Turner was murdered?' The question was a quick, shrewd parry.

`No, not just like that. Only I can form a theory.' The choice of words was most unfortunate.

`We don't want theories. We want facts. And in any case, you should remember Dick Turner. This is all most unpleasant for him. You should remember him, poor devil.'

Here it was again: the utterly illogical appeal, which to these two men was clearly not illogical at all. The whole thing was preposterous! Tony began to lose his temper.

`Do you or do you not want to hear what I have to say?' he asked, irritably.

`Go ahead. Only remember, I don't want to hear your fancies. I want to hear facts. Have you ever seen anything definite which would throw light on this murder. For instance, have you seen this boy attempting to get at her jewellery, or something like that. Anything that is definite. Not something in the air.'

Tony laughed. The two men looked at him sharply.

`You know as well as I do this case is not something that can be explained straight off like that. You know that. It's not something that can be said in black and white, straight off.'