‘Let us assume that I do not know anything at all. Just tell me everything as you saw it and heard about it yourself.’

The story of the evening came out, told in a very clear and succinct manner. A picture of Lila Dryden emerged. A young girl, not very robust, looking forward to her marriage, but nervous as the day approached, overdone with town engagements and fittings-‘So we were snatching this week-end to give her a rest. She used to walk in her sleep when she was at school, you know, and when it started again last week I put my foot down and said no more parties. Unfortunately she seems to have wandered out of her room last night and come upon poor Herbert’s body. She must have touched him, because there was blood on her hand and on her dress. Fortunately, Adrian Grey heard her leave her room and followed her. He has been in charge of the alterations at Vineyards, and he has known Lila since she was a child. He realized that she was walking in her sleep and went down after her, but she must have touched the body before he got there. You can imagine the shock when she came to and saw poor Herbert lying dead.’

Miss Silver said,

‘Dear me! A truly dreadful situation. Mr. Waring was also present, was he not?’

Lady Dryden’s voice hardened.

‘Mr. Waring is an extremely obstinate and interfering young man. He had been given his dismissal and he had refused to take it from me. I had told him that if he insisted on it, Lila would see him in the morning, and he must needs come up in the middle of the night to try and persuade her into an elopement. If he finds himself suspected of poor Herbert’s murder, he has only himself to thank. I hope’it will not turn out that he had anything to do with it. But when you consider the circumstances-his assertion of a non-existent engagement, his obstinate determination to force himself upon Lila, his presence in the study immediately after the murder-well, one cannot be surprised that the police suspect him.’

‘He hasn’t been arrested-’

Ray tried to get the words out, but they wouldn’t come. Her throat closed on them, her lips were numb. She heard Miss Silver ask the question for her.

‘He has not been arrested, Lady Dryden?’

‘No-not yet. I expect they will wait for the Scotland Yard people. By the way, perhaps you had better not refer to that. Two of the staff at Vineyards come in from the village, and the head housemaid from Emsworth. She is a very nice superior woman, and she has a cousin who is married to Inspector Newbury. She lives next door to them, and she heard all about the murder from her cousin and about Scotland Yard being called in before she came out here this morning. She should not, I suppose, have repeated it.’

Miss Silver said firmly,

‘It will be better not to refer to the matter. Lady Dryden, what can you tell me about the weapon? Miss Fortescue tells me that Sir Herbert was stabbed.’

‘It was a dagger with an ivory handle. He collected old ivories. This was supposed to be very old. He was showing it to us in the drawing-room after dinner. That is the curious thing. He has a collection of these ivories, and they are valuable. They are kept in an alcove off the drawing-room, and it is secured by a steel shutter. He opened it after dinner last night because Professor Richardson was there and he wanted to see this dagger. They had some kind of dispute about it. The Professor did not seem to think it was so old as Herbert said it was. He was really quite rude about it. And then Mrs. Considine suggested music, and Herbert locked the dagger away.’

‘He locked the dagger away again?’ said Miss Silver in an inquiring voice.

‘Yes. We all saw him put it back on the shelf and lock the sliding shutter. There is no doubt at all that he put it away. The question is, when did he get it out again, and why. The Considines and Professor Richardson went away at half past ten. Lila and I said good-night and went upstairs. Some time between then and midnight the ivory dagger was taken out again and Herbert was stabbed with it.’

A pair of fine wrought iron gates came into view. They stood open to the road, with a tree and shrub border beyond them. Lady Dryden turned in between the gates.

CHAPTER XX

Ray found that she was not to be allowed to see Lila until after lunch. Lady Dryden was emphatic.

‘You can stay with her the whole afternoon if you like. She is not to be left alone. Mary Good is with her now-the nice woman who comes out from Emsworth. Lunch will be ready, and you must come in. If we do not have proper meals we shall all break down, and that won’t help anyone.’

They had lunch, and Ray made herself eat. Miss Silver produced a marvellous line of small trite observations about the countryside. Ray was always to remember her remarking that she considered it draughty, and that changes in the weather were more noticeable than they were in a town. They were a party of five. Eric Haile took the head of the table. Watching his assured manner and air of being very completely at home, Ray was reminded of something her old nurse had said about a woman who was putting on airs-‘She thinks everything becomes her.’ Ray considered that fitted Mr. Haile very well. He had a quiet way with Marsham. He played the host to the manner born. He thought everything became him.

The other two staying in the house were Mr. Grey and Miss Whitaker. She knew Adrian Grey, and could feel thankful that he was there. Miss Whitaker was Sir Herbert’s secretary, and it seemed she had been away visiting a sick sister and had only got back a couple of hours ago. She was in black. She had dark circles under the eyes which she so rarely lifted that Ray couldn’t have said what colour they were. She hardly spoke, and she only made believe to eat, but she drank a glass of wine and it brought a little colour to her cheek. Of course it must have been a frightful shock, coming back like that to find Sir Herbert dead. And of course she would be out of a job. Perhaps she had somebody depending on her-you never knew. Ray wondered how long she had been with Sir Herbert, and whether she had been fond of him.

Just for a moment Millicent Whitaker looked up. Ray saw that her eyes were dark, and hard, and bright. A little shiver ran down her back. She turned to Adrian Grey.

When they were coming out of the dining-room he said in a low voice,

‘You have come to be with Lila. I am so very glad.’ Then, as they drew away from the others in the hall, ‘Lady Dryden isn’t very good for her, I think. She will expect Lila to make an effort, and that isn’t what she needs. She is like a child who has had a bad dream-she needs to be reassured and comforted.’

They stood for a moment looking at one another, and Ray said,

‘Yes.’

She had known him on and off for years, but not well, not like this. All at once she felt that now she knew him very well indeed. He was the sort of person you could be friends with. She felt that they were friends. She said in a quivering voice,

‘Bill didn’t do it.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

‘He might have hit him-he couldn’t have stabbed him.’

His quiet ‘No’ was like a hand coming out to help you in the dark. She looked at him with a gratitude which told its own story and turned to the stairs.

‘I must go to Lila.’

‘Yes. But just a minute. I don’t know how she is, but it’s possible she may want to see me. My room is just across the landing, and I’ll be there all the afternoon. I’ll come up with you and show you.’

As they went up together he said,

‘You see, she may think she did it, and I’m the only person who can tell her she didn’t, because I was behind her all the way.’

When Ray came into the room she couldn’t see anything at all. The curtains were drawn close against the daylight, letting through a kind of shaded dusk just tinged with the blue and green and rose of a flowery pattern. After a moment her eyes cleared, and she saw the bed with someone lying on it. Then Mary Good got up and came forward in a print dress and white apron. Her voice when she spoke had a pleasant country sound.