‘Well, madam,’ he said, ‘since you are all here, there are just one or two things I might want to put to you, though it really was Mr Geoffrey Ford I was intending to see… perhaps you will sit down again, sir.’

Caught between Adriana’s look of command and the Superintendent’s air of authority, Geoffrey Ford sat down. Martin looked across at Janet and enquired, ‘Is this the lady who went up to town with the little girl – Miss Johnstone, wasn’t it?’ And when Janet said, ‘Yes,’ he took her briefly through what she knew of the events of the previous evening, finishing up with,

‘And you had known the deceased how long?’

‘Just a few days – since I came down here.’

‘Had any disagreement with her – any quarrel?’

‘No.’

He nodded.

‘Just one question more. Do you play golf?’

‘I haven’t played for a year or two.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I have been working in London.’

‘Bring any clubs down here?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Any talk of your playing down here with the deceased or anyone else? Any suggestion of lending you clubs?’

Her look was candid and surprised.

‘Oh, no.’

He swung round on Geoffrey.

‘You play golf, Mr Ford?’

Geoffrey shrugged.

‘I’m not much of a player.’

‘But you do play?’

‘Oh, once in a way.’

‘Then I take it you have a set of clubs.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Where are they kept?’

‘In the cloakroom, by the garden door.’

The Superintendent turned his look on Edna.

‘Do you play, Mrs Ford?’

She rested her hand upon the embroidery-frame.

‘Well, I used to play a little, but I haven’t for a long time now. There is so much to do in a big house like this, and my health isn’t what it was. I’m afraid the idea of going out for a long tramp over rough ground doesn’t appeal to me any longer.’

She took up her needle again.

Martin said, ‘Does anyone else in the household play? Oh yes, you, Mr Rutherford – I remember. You have a pretty low handicap, haven’t you?’

Ninian laughed.

‘They put me up a stroke last year. Horrid result of London.’

‘Have you got your clubs down here?’

‘No, as a matter of fact I didn’t bring them. I didn’t expect to have time to play’

Adriana said in her deep voice,

‘Why are you asking all these questions about golfclubs?’

His face was set in grave and heavy lines.

‘Because Miss Meriel Ford was killed by a blow from a golf-club.’

It is probable that everyone in the room drew in a quicker breath. Adriana, sitting up straight in her purple gown with the light on her dark red hair, spoke for all the rest.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because the club has been found, pushed in between the summerhouse and the hedge. It was a heavy niblick. It shows unmistakable signs of having been used as the weapon of attack. The fact that it has been wiped free of fingerprints points to the deliberate nature of the crime.’

Janet found herself trembling. The picture came up in her mind so suddenly, so horribly. The pool with the sky reflected in it – a sky of clouds – a sky of stars? No knowing which it had been. Meriel with her tormenting jealousies, and the dark thought of murder sweeping into action with one appalling blow. She heard the Superintendent say, ‘She was dead before she touched the water,’ and it was not only she that was shaking now, but the room.

Ninian put his arm round her, and she put her head down on his shoulder and shut her eyes.

When everything had steadied again, Geoffrey Ford was saying,

‘I told you before – I went out for a stroll.’

‘Did you call in on anyone?’

Edna’s pale eyes were lifted. They looked at him, they looked at Superintendent Martin. She said,

‘He went to see Mrs Trent at the Lodge.’

‘Is that so, Mr Ford?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘May I ask how long you were there?’

‘Well, really, Superintendent, I don’t know. I suppose I smoked a couple of cigarettes-’

‘Would you say you were there for something over half an hour?’

‘Well, something like that – perhaps a little longer. I really couldn’t say’

‘It would take you about ten minutes each way, coming and going?’

‘Oh, scarcely so much as that. I’ve never timed it.’

‘Nearer five or six minutes?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And you left this house when?’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t look at the time.’

Adriana said, ‘It was about twenty past eight when you left the drawing-room, and about half past when Meriel went after you.’

The Superintendent nodded.

‘At that rate, Mr Ford, you should have been back at Ford House by half past nine. Is that what you say?’

Geoffrey’s colour had deepened considerably.

‘It’s really no good pressing me about either the time I went out or came in. Hang it all, man, one doesn’t go about with one’s eye on one’s watch! It was a mild evening – I strolled down to see a friend – we got talking about this and that – I really haven’t any idea how long I stayed. I said I smoked a couple of cigarettes, but it may quite easily have been more. I can’t tell you when I got back here. All I know is it wasn’t late.’

Edna’s hands had been resting idly on her work. She said now without any expression at all,

‘The time does go so fast when you are – talking.’

No one could have failed to notice the pause before the final word. She picked up her needle as soon as it was spoken. Martin said,

‘So it might have been as much as ten o’clock when you got back. Was there a light on in the drawing-room?’

‘I have no idea. I went out, as I came in, by the study window, and I went straight to my room.’

‘You did not look at a clock, then?’

‘No, I did not.’

The Superintendent turned to Adriana.

‘I think you stated that you, and Mrs Ford, and this lady’ – he indicated Miss Silver – ‘went up to bed at half past nine. That was very early.’

‘We had had a tiring day.’

‘Did any of you come down again?’

‘I certainly did not.’

‘You, Mrs Ford?’

Edna said in her dreary voice, ‘Oh, no. I had been having such bad nights. I took the sleeping-tablet Dr Fielding had prescribed for me and went to bed.’

‘And you, Miss Silver?’

She looked across her knitting and said,

‘No, I did not go down again.’

He turned back to Geoffrey Ford.

‘Miss Meriel Ford followed you out of the drawing-room at about half past eight. She had avowed her intention of fetching you back from the study. Did she find you there?’

They had asked him that before, and he had said no. Why did they ask him again? It looked as if they didn’t believe him. Perhaps it would have been better to say that Meriel had found him, and that he had told her he was going out. But then they would have wanted to know where she had been, what she was doing – how she came to fetch up in the pool. He oughtn’t to have hesitated – he should have said something at once. He spoke now in a hurry.

‘No – no – of course not. I don’t know if she came to the study or not, but if she did, I wasn’t there.’

The Superintendent got up. Behind him his Inspector pushed back his chair and rose. Martin walked towards the door, but just before he got to it he turned and spoke to Geoffrey.

‘I have been seeing Mrs Trent. She seems as uncertain about the times as you are. I went there early to ask her about the handkerchief which was found in the summerhouse – a yellow handkerchief with the name Esmé embroidered across the corner.’

Edna Ford’s hand was arrested in the act of taking a stitch. She said,

‘Mrs Trent’s name is Esmé.’

Martin nodded.

‘That is why I went to see her. She says she is quite unable to explain how her handkerchief could have got there. Can you throw any light upon the subject, Mr Ford?’

‘Of course I can’t!’

‘Miss Meriel Ford did not by any chance accompany you to the Lodge? If she did, she might have picked up the handkerchief by mistake?’