They gave him a chair. The big man sat at Sir Herbert’s desk. Inspector Abbott got out his notebook. They were going to write everything down.

Miss Silver had taken a chair where he could see her. She met a wandering apprehensive glance, smiled reassuringly, and addressed Chief Inspector Lamb.

‘This is Frederick Baines. He had a quarrel with a friend last Saturday, and he slipped out of the house to go down to the village and make it up with her. He is going to tell you what happened.’

Lamb turned his large ruddy face upon the wretched Frederick. He didn’t look like a town policeman at all, he looked like a farmer. He looked terribly like Mr. Long at Bullthorne who had once caught him and Jimmy Good stealing his plums at ten o’clock on a fine August night. He had walloped them well and threatened them with the police. And now here were the police, and he had got to talk to them. He found that he still had Miss Silver’s handkerchief in the pocket of his grey linen house-coat. He fished it out and mopped a streaming brow.

The rather bulging brown eyes of the Chief Inspector regarded him without giving anything away. He said, with a homely touch of country accent on his words.

‘Well, my lad-speak up. You slipped out of the house on the night of the murder to go and see a girl. Was that it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Had a quarrel with her and wanted to make it up?’ The tone was not unkind. It even inclined to the indulgent. Thirty-five years ago a boy called Ernest Lamb had also slipped out at night, to throw a pebble up at the window of the girl who was now Mrs. Lamb.

Encouraged by the fact that he was not immediately required to disclose the climax of his tale, Frederick produced a number of artless facts about himself and Gloria Good, his voice steadying as he went along and his recourse to the borrowed handkerchief becoming less frequent. Miss Silver was satisfied that he was making a good impression.

Lamb listened, put in an occasional question, and finished up by saying,

‘So you made it up, and no harm done. Of course you oughtn’t to have slipped out of the house that way-you know that without my telling you.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now what time would it be when you slipped out?’

‘A bit after eleven, sir. There was the gentleman with the auto-bike, Professor Richardson, he come round the house and got on his bike and off down the drive.’

‘Dark night, wasn’t it? How did you know it was the Professor?’

‘I was looking out, sir. My room looks to the front. He’d left his bike right down underneath where I was. He barked his shins against the pedal, and he swore. You can’t mistake the Professor when he swears, sir.’

‘And what time was that? Have you a clock in your room?’

‘Oh, yes-alarm clock, sir. It was between the ten and a quarter past eleven.’

‘What were you doing, looking out of the window?’

‘I’d seen the Professor come, and I was waiting for him to go, sir.’

‘And then?’

‘I thought Mr. Marsham would be doing his rounds. He’d have done all the back premises first and be well out of the way. I listened at the top of the back stairs and slipped down.’

Lamb sat back in the writing-chair, a massive hand on either knee. Frank Abbott wrote in his quick, neat shorthand. He thought, as he had often thought before, ‘The Chief is good with people. He thinks this boy is honest, and he’s giving him a chance to steady down and tell what he knows in his own way. If he bullied him he wouldn’t get a word of sense.’

Lamb nodded.

‘How did you get out-by the back door?’

‘No, sir. Mr. Marsham bolts it, and the bolts creak. There’s’ -he faltered a little-‘there’s a window in the housekeeper’s room, sir.’

Lamb regarded him fixedly.

‘So you didn’t go out by the study?’

There was horror in Frederick ’s tone.

‘Oh, no, sir! Sir Herbert was there.’

‘How did you know that?’

‘Because of the Professor, sir-he’d just gone. Sir Herbert always sits up late.’

‘You didn’t go into the study at all?’

‘N-no, sir.’

‘Sure?’

‘Oh yes, sir.’

‘All right-go on. You went out and saw your girl. What else did you see?’

Frederick lost colour.

‘It was when I was coming back, sir.’

‘Well?’

‘I was in the drive-near the top of it, close to the house- and I heard something behind me-it was a stick cracking. So I stood still, and she come up past me on her bicycle.’

‘Who did?’

‘I didn’t rightly know-not then, sir. She was riding without a light, and just after she passed me she got off and started wheeling the bike, so I thought I’d go after her and see who it was.’

Frank Abbott lifted his head and looked across at Miss Silver. She nodded briefly.

Lamb said without hurry,

‘And who was it?’

‘I couldn’t rightly see, sir. She put her bike against a tree a little way from the top of the drive, and she went along the path that goes through the shrubbery. It’s all in amongst the bushes, and I thought, “Well it’s someone that knows the way.” But I kept after her, because it didn’t seem right her leaving her bike like that. I mean, I couldn’t think who it could be-because Miss Whitaker had gone to her sister’s, and none of the maids sleep in.’

Lamb said, ‘Go on.’

‘The path turns and comes out by the terrace. She went up the steps. I darsn’t keep too near in case of her seeing me, because I began to think it was Miss Whitaker, and she’d have got me into trouble about my being out. She’d get anyone into trouble and like doing it-we all know that. So I kept well back. I thought she’d gone in-by the study window. I thought that was funny, and I thought perhaps it wasn’t Miss Whitaker and I’d better find out. So I went up on to the terrace, and there was a light in the study, and the glass door open.’

‘Go on.’

‘There’s two steps, sir. I went up them, and I looked in.’ He used the handkerchief again with a shaking hand. ‘Oh, sir, it was ’orrible! Sir Herbert, he was lying there dead and that knife with the ivory handle sticking out of his shirt front.’

Fank Abbott looked up and said,

‘The dagger was sticking in him? You’re sure about that?’

‘Oh, yes, sir-it was ’orrible.’

Lamb drummed on his knee with clumsy fingers.

‘What was the woman doing?’

‘She was standing there looking down at him. It was Miss Whitaker, sir.’

‘Was she bending over the body?’

‘No, sir-she just stood there. She was talking, sir.’

‘What did she say?’

‘It made my blood run cold, sir. She said, “You asked for it, and you’ve got it.” And I thought she was going to turn round and come away, when the other door opened.’ He pointed. ‘That one, sir. And Miss Lila came into the room.’

‘Miss Dryden?’

‘Yes, sir-walking in her sleep, sir. My sister that died, she used to, and the doctor said never to wake her sudden.’

‘You are quite sure she was walking in her sleep?’

‘Oh, yes, sir-because of my sister-she looked just the same. She come into the room. Miss Whitaker could see how it was, the same as what I could. She laughed something horrid, sir, and she said quite quiet, “This is where you come in, I think”.’

‘Yes-go on. What did Miss Dryden do? Did she touch the body?’

‘Oh, no, sir. She just come in about as far as the middle of the room and stood there. They don’t know what they’re doing when they’re like that, and they don’t remember nothing about it. Miss Whitaker, she goes over to Sir Herbert and she pulls out the knife with the ivory handle-’

‘With her bare hand?’

‘Oh, no, sir-she’d got gloves on. She fetches it out, and she wipes the blood off of it with the front of Miss Lila’s dress and she puts it in Miss Lila’s hand. Oh, sir, it was ’orrid!’

‘You saw her do that?’

No one could have doubted that he had seen it. The boy’s face twitched and worked. His pallor had taken on a greenish tinge. His eyes remembered. He drew a shuddering breath.