“Will you tell us what you did next, Miss Craddock?”

“I ran away,” said Lucy Craddock simply. “I ran out of the house and down the street. I ran until I couldn’t run any more, and then I didn’t know where I was. It took me a long time to get to Phoebe’s, but at last I did. And then I fainted.”

Frank Abbott leaned forward.

“Why didn’t you alarm the house?” he said.

Lucy Craddock stared at him. Her chin began to tremble.

“Why didn’t you rouse the house? You say you thought your cousin had been murdered. You must have more than suspected that you had just seen the murderer. Miss Fenton and Peter were both within call. Why didn’t you call them?”

She went on staring.

“I-I couldn’t.”

“Why couldn’t you? Miss Fenton-Peter-both within call-your own flat waiting for you-why should you run out into the street and wander there for an hour? Why, Miss Craddock?”

She said in a dry whisper,

“I-I was so frightened.”

“But you ran way from the people who could have helped you. Miss Craddock, you must have had a reason for running away like that. Shall I tell you what I think that reason was?”

Lucy Craddock said, “No-no.”

Abbott went on speaking in his quiet, pleasant voice.

“It was something you saw that sent you running out of the house-I think it was someone you saw.”

She gasped, and got breath enough to speak firmly.

“No, no, Mr. Abbott, I didn’t see anyone-only poor Ross, and he was dead.”

He watched her face.

“You didn’t see your niece, Miss Mavis Grey?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Abbott.”

“Or Miss Fenton?”

A look of simple surprise answered this before she said in a tone of relief,

“Oh, no, not Lee.”

“Or-Peter?”

The relief was still in her voice.

“Oh dear, no.”

“Miss Craddock, whom did you see?”

“I didn’t see anyone-I didn’t indeed.”

“You saw something that sent you running out into the road. Won’t you tell me what you saw? It was something to do with your niece, wasn’t it-with Mavis Grey?” He saw her face quiver. “You see, we know she had been there.”

She turned at that to Peter, and he said,

“They know that Mavis came back with Ross. He frightened her, and she came over to me at one in the morning. Miss Bingham saw her. Ross was alive then. Miss Bingham, fortunately, saw him too.”

Abbott struck in.

“Miss Craddock, you are not helping your niece by holding anything back. A full statement might help her very much, because, you see, she returned to Craddock’s flat at three o’clock. Miss Bingham saw her when she was coming back. Miss Grey foolishly denies this second visit and refuses to explain it. But if you saw Ross Craddock dead at a quarter past two, don’t you see how important that is to your niece? My idea is that she went back to the flat at three o’clock because she had left something there.”

“Her bag,” said Peter. “She said she had dropped it on the landing. You know, Fug, she couldn’t have expected to find Ross’s front door open.”

“She may have had a key.”

“I don’t think so. If she had, it would be in her bag. She had that bag at the Ducks and Drakes, and she didn’t have it when she came over to me at one o’clock, but it was in her hand when she came back at three.”

“She didn’t tell you where she had been?”

“She told me she had dropped the bag on the landing.”

“Did you believe her?”

“No.”

“Was Craddock’s door shut-then-when she came back to your flat?”

“The landing was dark-I suppose Miss Bingham told you that-and I never left my hall, so I don’t know whether Ross’s door was open or shut. It was shut first thing in the morning.”

This rapid interchange of question and answer seemed to pass Lucy Craddock by. When it ceased she said,

“I see what you mean, Mr. Abbott. Indeed that is why I wished to make a statement. If poor Ross had been shot before Mavis went back to that dreadful room to look for her bag at three, then no one could suspect her of having anything to do with it.”

“She did go back for her bag then?”

Lucy Craddock looked at him nervously.

“Perhaps I ought not to have said that, but, as I told her, it is our duty to help the law, and he was dead long before she came into the room.”

“And it was her bag that you saw, Miss Craddock. Was that it? Was that why you didn’t give the alarm?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Abbott. I didn’t see the bag at all. I wouldn’t have left it there if I had seen it. Oh, no, it had slipped down behind the cushion in that big chair, and I never saw it at all.”

“Then what did you see?”

“It was her powder compact,” said Lucy Craddock. “It must have fallen off her lap and rolled. It was right at my feet, and of course I knew it at once, because it was a birthday present from Bobby Foster-blue enamel, with her initials on it in diamonds-only of course not real ones, because Bobby couldn’t possibly afford that, and I hope Mavis doesn’t encourage him to be extravagant.”

Chapter XXVI

Lee looked out of the bedroom window and saw Peter getting into a taxi with Detective Abbott. Her heart stopped beating, because this meant that Peter had been arrested and was being taken away to prison.

Detective Abbott shut the door with a good resounding bang and the taxi drove away up the street, and round the corner and out of sight.

Lee’s heart had begun to beat again, painfully and hard. She hadn’t known just how much she loved Peter until she saw him go away like that. She never doubted for a moment that he had been arrested, and if they could arrest him, perhaps they could find him guilty. The most dreadful pictures rushed into her mind, causing her so much agony that she became giddy and had to grope her way to the bed.

But she hadn’t time to be giddy. She must do something at once, and she knew just what she had got to do. She ran out of the flat on to the landing and almost bumped into Inspector Lamb. Before he had time to say “I beg your pardon” she had him by the sleeve.

“I want to tell you something! Oh, please, please listen! He didn’t do it-he didn’t really! I want to tell you!”

The Inspector looked pardonably surprised.

“Steady on, Miss Fenton. What’s all this?”

“Please, please listen to me!”

“I’ll listen to anything-it’s my job. But not out on the landing. There are too many eavesdroppers in this house. Now suppose you ask me into your flat and tell me what it’s all about. I’m a bit tired of number eight.”

She took him into Lucy Craddock’s sitting-room, where he sat down in the big armchair. Lee sat down too, because something seemed to have happened to her knees. She said in a small, rigid voice,

“I want to tell you about Tuesday night. Peter didn’t do it-he didn’t really. I didn’t know you were going to arrest him or I would have told you before.”

He looked at her shrewdly.

“I didn’t know myself.”

“I want to tell you about Tuesday night.”

“You have made one statement already, Miss Fenton.”

He got an agonized glance.

“I didn’t tell you everything.”

“Nobody ever does,” said Inspector Lamb.

“But I will now-oh, I will really.”

The Inspector’s second daughter was his favorite, perhaps because she had been delicate as a child. It so chanced that the eyes which gazed at him so imploringly were of the same deep grey as Ethel Lamb’s. He coughed, and said in a less official voice than the words warranted,

“If you are thinking of saying anything that would incriminate you, it is my duty to point out that I shall have to take it down, and that it is liable to be used against you.”

“Yes-I know. But that doesn’t matter at all,” Lee said.

She felt a sort of dreadful impatience as she watched him get out his notebook, open it, try the pencil, and very leisurely improve its point. And then she was off on her story, the words tumbling over one another, and every now and then her voice catching and holding them up. Every time the Inspector looked up her eyes were fixed on him with the same desperate intentness. “Are you believing me?” they seemed to say. “Are you-are you? Because you must-oh, you must!”