CHAPTER XXXColonel Bostock, Superintendent Vyner, and Miss Silver were in the study next morning. A fire burned brightly on the hearth. The crimson curtains were drawn back to their fullest extent, leaving in view the terrace, grey in the shadow of the house, and the scar on the parapet where James Paradine had struck against it in his fall. The night had been stormy, but the clouds were rifting. Every now and then a gleam of pallid sunshine touched the river.
Superintendent Vyner sat at the table. The statements which he had allowed Miss Silver to read lay where she had just placed them at his left hand. She had selected the most appropriate chair in the room, high and narrow in the back and straight in the seat, with a pattern of little shiny knobs all round it. Miss Silver sat up as st
