CHAPTER XIXEmerging from Miss Anning’s office, Frank Abbott made his way towards the drawing-room. Manners demanded that he should say good-bye to Miss Silver, but it is not to be denied that he had an ulterior motive. He wanted to check up on Marie Bonnet’s story and to know what Mrs. Burkett had heard when she walked in on Miss Anning and her old friend Alan Field.
There was an even more formidable concentration of elderly ladies, the party having been reinforced by a couple of visitors. From the sudden hush which greeted his entrance he deduced that they knew that he was a police officer, and that they had been discussing the murder of Alan Field.
To his suggestion that Miss Silver might care to take a stroll along the cliff path she replied that it would indeed be pleasant, and most
