The Inspector pushed his chair back with a loud scraping sound.

“I should be obliged if you would keep to the point, Miss Bingham.”

“Yes, yes-so very necessary-I quite agree.”

“Since you have been here so long and are acquainted with all these people-”

“Yes, yes-that brings me to my first head-Mr. Craddock’s Relations with his Relations-a humorous touch which I could hardly resist, though perhaps in the circumstances not quite suitable.”

Inspector Lamb drew a long breath.

“I shall be glad to hear anything you have to say on that subject.”

He received an arch glance.

“Method, you see, Inspector-method. That was my first head. It is, naturally, painful to me to have to say so, but I feel I must be perfectly frank, and I can only say that Mr. Craddock’s relations with his-er-relatives were not at all good. Oh, dear me, no-quite the reverse. My poor friend Lucy Craddock cried to me, positively cried, over his dissipated ways and his total lack of consideration for the family name and for her feelings. I happen to know that she was most distressed and anxious over his scandalous pursuit of her niece.”

“Was that Miss Mavis Grey?”

“Yes, Mavis Grey. I see you have already heard something on that point. Over and over again Lucy begged him to desist. And only yesterday I happened to be coming down the stairs, and I saw him pushing my poor friend, actually pushing her, out of his front door, and I heard what he said. Anyone might have heard it, for he spoke quite loud-and how a man who had had the upbringing of a gentleman could so far forget himself-”

“What did he say?”

Miss Bingham tossed her head.

“ ‘Old maid cousins should be seen and not heard.’ That’s what he said! And poor Lucy stood there just as if she had been turned to stone, until Peter Renshaw came upstairs, and when he asked her what was the matter she burst out crying and said, ‘He’s wicked!’ And I know, because Mrs. Green told me, that he was going to turn Lucy out! After she’d been thirty years in that flat of hers! I don’t wonder she said he was wicked!”

“Mr. Craddock’s relations with Miss Lucy Craddock were not good then. Now what about Mr. Renshaw? What sort of terms was he on with him?”

“Not at all good terms,” said Miss Bingham, shaking her head. “Why, I’ve seen Mr. Renshaw walk all the way up the stairs rather than go in the lift with his cousin. Oh, yes, anyone could tell you that they didn’t get on-oh, no, not at all.”

“And Miss Fenton?”

“Well, I couldn’t say very much about Miss Fenton. She’s not a young woman I care for particularly-far too off-hand in her manner. I believe Lucy Craddock is very fond of her. I can’t think why, because the girl quite refused to be guided by Lucy’s advice and insisted, absolutely insisted, on going off to South America or somewhere. I may say I was most surprised to find that she was here in Lucy Craddock’s flat. I quite understood that she had started for South America.”

“You didn’t know of any ill feeling between her and Mr. Craddock?”

A disappointed look crossed Miss Bingham’s face. She did the best she could.

“They were not at all friendly,” she said. “And that brings me to my second head-Events of Last Night.”

The Inspector hitched himself up in his chair. Detective Abbott, who had been gazing at the ceiling, brought his eyes to the writing-table again. Eavesdropping old cats had their uses. She might have something to tell, or she might not. He thought she had. She looked like a cat who had been at the cream, and-oh gosh, what a witness she was going to make!

She was speaking.

“Of course, I don’t know, Inspector, what Mr. Renshaw has told you. I have had no communication with him, I can assure you. He may have made a frank and honest statement, or he may not-it is not for me to say. I am making no allegations. If I have my suspicions, it is because my knowledge of human nature tells me that young men are very unreliable when there is a young woman in the case. Even Lucy Craddock, who has been regrettably weak with her, is forced to admit that the girl is a flirt. Though why anyone should think her pretty I do not understand, but a young man like Peter Renshaw-”

The Inspector leaned forward and raised his voice.

“Here, Miss Bingham, what are you talking about?”

Miss Bingham opened her black suede bag, rummaged in it, said “Dear, dear!” under her breath, rummaged again, produced a clean folded pocket handkerchief with a mauve border, dabbed at her nose to remove a bead of moisture from its tip, and said sharply,

“Mavis Grey and Peter Renshaw.”

“What about them?”

She threw him a bright, triumphant look.

“Then he didn’t tell you.”

“He didn’t tell me what?”

“That she spent the night in his flat.”

The Inspector hit the writing-table with the palm of his left hand.

“Who spent the night in whose flat?”

Miss Bingham coughed.

“Of course you realize, Inspector, that this is an awkward subject. It is, naturally, very unpleasant for me to have to mention such a thing, but when it comes to murder-”

“Who spent the night in whose flat?” said Inspector Lamb.

Miss Bingham shook her head.

“I felt sure he wouldn’t tell you. Such a false code of honour. Very wrong-very wrong indeed. Perhaps I had better tell you what I saw and heard.”

“I think you had.”

Miss Bingham glanced at her crumpled sheet of paper.

“I had been beginning at the beginning. Method, you know, method. I have a portable wireless set-with earphones, because I do not think it right to disturb others for my own pleasure. Most inconsiderate-most inconsiderate and selfish, is what I always have said and always will say. So I use earphones.”

Detective Abbott looked at the ceiling. How much of this could old Lamb stand before he started to foam and bite the carpet?

Miss Bingham patted her hair-net complacently and continued.

“I take the second news, and after that I retire for the night. I do not generally put my light out until half past eleven. I may have been a little later than that last night, but it would not be more than a few minutes. I did not go to sleep. I heard Mr. Renshaw come in. My clock struck twelve just about then, and it was no use my thinking about sleep until he had finished going to bed. He has a peculiarly noisy way of opening and shutting drawers. Really, after having my dear friend Mary Craddock there for so long it is most disturbing, most unpleasantly disturbing. Then when I did get to sleep, it seemed to me that I was almost immediately awakened. It was a sound that had waked me, I am sure-something of an unusual nature.”

“Was it a shot?”

“That is what I cannot say. My bedroom is over the sitting-room of Mary Craddock’s flat. She used the larger and better room as a bedroom on account of being an invalid, so I was not so near to Mr. Craddock’s flat as if I had been in my sitting-room, but I had all the doors open inside the flat. The night was exceptionally sultry, and I am convinced that the sound I heard came from the floor below, and from the direction of number eight. I am sure of this, because my first thought was that Mr. Craddock had no business to disturb us all in the middle of the night. I put on my dressing-gown and went out on the landing. The light burns there all night, but I turned it out because I naturally did not wish to be seen. I then went a little way down the stairs and looked over the banisters. Oh, Inspector-what did I see?”

“You’d better tell us,” said the Inspector drily.

Miss Bingham’s. eyes were glittering with excitement.

“Well, there was Mr. Craddock in his doorway with his hand up to his head and blood all over it. And there was Peter Renshaw over by his door, and that girl Mavis Grey with her arms round his neck, crying, and sobbing, and saying, ‘Oh, don’t let him touch me!’ ”