“Oh, my dear, I’m so thankful,” said Lucy Craddock. She dabbed with her handkerchief. “Lee dear, I could do with another cup of tea.”

Chapter XXX

The funeral took place next day. Since Lucy Craddock insisted on attending, Lee could do no less. The utmost efforts to keep time and place from becoming known had not prevented a crowd from assembling. Lucy wept, Lee looked as if she was going to faint, and Peter wondered when they would all stop living in a nightmare and be able to return to the decencies of private life.

When it was over he went to see Inspector Lamb, and came back from the interview a good deal depressed in spirits.

“I thought I was on the ground floor, but there’s a basement, and old Lamb has just let me down into it with a bump.”

He cast himself down on the floor beside Lee and laid his head against her knee.

“You don’t feel as if you’d like to kiss me and say a few nice womanly things like ‘Darling, we’ve still got each other,’ and, ‘It is always darkest before the dawn’?”

Lee smiled a little wanly.

“Peter, if I kiss you I shall probably begin to cry, and that would be about the last straw, because Lucy never stops, does she?”

“I shall divorce you if you cry.”

“You can’t divorce me till we are married.”

Peter pulled down one of her hands and put his cheek against it.

“ ‘A Bride’s Cynicism, or Modern Outlook on Marriage,’ ” he remarked. “You know, if Lucinda heard you talk like that, she’d have a fit. You’ve got a lovely, soft, cool hand.”

“Have I? I’m glad. What did the Lamb say that cast you down into a basement?”

“He’d had a report from Birmingham -about Aggie, you know-and it’s no good. She’s got a room in quite a respectable sort of lodging-house-been there about a week-and the police and at least three people are prepared to swear that she was there on Tuesday night, because she was taken ill and waked the landlady up at two in the morning, and the husband-the landlady’s husband, not Aggie’s-went round and knocked up a chemist to get some stuff made up for her. Some kind of a heart attack, and she’d run out of what she takes for it.”

“That seems very convenient,” said Lee slowly.

Peter twisted round so that he could look at her.

“Do you think it’s too convenient?”

She drew a long breath.

“I don’t know, but-two in the morning is such a frightfully difficult time to have an alibi for. Why should Aggie have one? It-it-feels queer to me.”

He sat right up.

“Darling, your head’s going round. Aggie was in Birmingham on Tuesday night having a heart attack unless (a) her respectable landlady, (b) her respectable landlady’s respectable husband, and (c) one Mrs. Coltham, who had the room next door and helped minister to the afflicted, are all perjuring themselves black in the face, and really there’s on reason why they should, because none of them had so much as set eyes on her a week before. They weren’t very enthusiastic about her either. Miss La Fay -she’s stuck to her stage name by the bye-Miss La Fay gave a good deal of trouble. They had nothing against her, but theatrical ladies weren’t really in their line, they said. So there we are-Aggie Crouch alias Rosalie La Fay is a wash-out. I shall have to concentrate on Miss Bingham.”

“There isn’t any news about Bobby Foster, I suppose?”

“Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time-they’re bound to get him. Besides, if there’s anything stupid he can do he’ll probably do it, and so will Mavis. There’s no news of her either.”

“You know,” said Lee, “I think Bobby did it. I mean, he wouldn’t if he’d been sober, but if he was pretty far gone when you sent him home at twelve, he probably didn’t in the least know what he was doing by two in the morning. He seems to have gone on having one drink after another, and by the time he got round here-well, he mightn’t really have known what he was doing, and all those things he’d been saying about knocking Ross’s head off and shooting him-don’t you see, the idea might have taken charge. People who wouldn’t hurt a fly when they’re sober do horrible things when they’re drunk.”

There was a knock on the outer door. Peter got to his feet.

“If it’s a policeman, Lucy’s lying down, you are completely prostrated, and I am raving. I shall give an exhibition performance of biting the hall linoleum.”

“I can’t bear another policeman,” said Lee-“I really can’t-not even the Pet Lamb.”

It wasn’t a policeman. It was Rush in his Sunday suit, and the black tie he had worn for the funeral. He was clothed in dignity and gloom, and had in his hand a small brass tray entirely covered with keys. The minute the door was fairly open he began upon a speech which bore every sign of having been rehearsed.

“Seeing as you’re master here now, Mr. Peter, and the police cleared out, thank ’eavens, I should like to know what about me and what about the keys. All here present and correct except Miss Lemoine’s that she’s took away with her, number four, and the Miss Holdsworths, number three, and Mrs. and Miss Tatterley, number two. They’ve taken theirs, though I’ve always said and always tells them that it’s not safe. Suppose there was a fire. Suppose there was these cat-burglars. ’Elpless-that’s what we should be. But all the others is here. Lady Trent, number six-I’ll say that for her, she always ’ands hers in and no bones about it. And Potters, ten and eleven, and Connells, number five-they left theirs with Mrs. Green for her to clean up after them. And that’s another thing that didn’t ought to be done, and I’d like to get that straight with you here and now, Mr. Peter-keys is my responsibility, and any of these daily women that’s got any cleaning to do, they can come to me for the key and ’and it back at the end of the day. But Mrs. Green, she got these keys direct, Potters’ and Connells’-had them for days and made fuss enough about giving them up. But I would have them, and when I told her I’d mention it to the police she give in. And give me her notice too, and won’t be no loss.”

“Hadn’t you better come in?” said Peter. “And what do you expect me to do with all these keys? I always lose my own.”

Rush came as far as the threshold.

“And when you speak about losing keys,” he said in his severest voice, “there’s a matter that I’ll mention. Mr. Ross, he lost one of the keys of his flat a matter of ten days ago. There’s three keys to every flat, all Yales, and Mr. Ross, he lost one of his.”

“How? I do wish you’d come in, Rush.”

“I won’t come no farther. In my opinion Mr. Ross left that key sticking in his door and someone pinched it. I’ve found it there before now myself and got sworn at for my pains.”

Peter took him by the arm, pulled him in, and shut the door.

“Look here, Rush, that might be important. Did you tell the police?”

“What’s the good of them? No, I didn’t tell them, but I’m telling you. And when Mr. Ross forgot himself and as good as said I’d been meddling with his papers, I said to him then, ‘Mr. Ross,’ I said, ‘what about that key you left sticking in the door? Someone took that key, and someone took it because they was a-going to use it’-that’s what I said. But now I’ve got something else to say. You find the one that took that key, and you’ll find the one that shot Mr. Ross.”

Peter made a queer sort of a face.

“A bit drastic, Rush. How do you make that out?”

“I don’t have to make it out. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, Mr. Peter. If I find the cat in the larder lapping up the milk, and come another day there’s the fish missing, well, I don’t have to make it out that it was the cat took both. You find who wanted a key to Mr. Ross’s flat and why they wanted it, and you’ll find out who shot him all right.”

Peter looked hard at him.

“Ross made a row with you about his papers. What exactly did he say?”