‘For God’s sake, Bunter,’ said Wimsey, with a strained note in his voice, ‘don’t say you’ve found-Where? Down the cellar?’

The voice of Mrs Ruddle broke the tension like the wail of a banshee:

‘Frank, Frank Crutchley! It’s Mr Noakes!’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Bunter.

Miss Twitterton, unexpectedly quick-witted, sprang to her feet. ‘He’s dead! Uncle’s dead!’ The mug rolled from her hands to crash on the hearth-stone.

‘No, no,’ said Harriet, ‘they can’t mean that.’

‘Oh no, impossible,’ said Mr Goodacre, He looked appealingly at Bunter, who bent his head. ‘ I am very much afraid so, sir.’

Crutchley, thrusting him aside, burst in. ‘What’s happened? What’s Ma Ruddle shouting about? Where’s-?’

‘I knew it, I knew it!’ shrieked Miss Twitterton, recklessly. ‘I knew something terrible had happened! Uncle’s dead and all the money’s gone!’

She burst into a fit of hiccupping laughter, made a dart towards Crutchley, who recoiled with a gasp, broke from the vicar’s supporting hand, and flung herself hysterically into Harriet’s arms.

‘Here!’ said Mr Puffett, ‘let’s have a look.’ He made for the door, cannoning into Crutchley. Bunter profited by the confusion to fling the door to and set his back against it.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Bunter. ‘Better not touch anything.’ As if the words were a signal for which he had been waiting, Peter took up his cold pipe from the table, knocked it out on his palm and flung the crushed ashes upon the tray.

‘Perhaps’, said Mr Goodacre, as one who hopes against hope, ‘he has only fainted.’ He rose eagerly. ‘We might be able to assist him-’ His voice trailed away.

‘Dead some days’, said Bunter, ‘from the looks of him, sir.’ His eye was still on Peter.

‘Has he got the money on him?’ inquired MacBride. The vicar, unheeding, flung another question, like a wave, against the stone wall of Bunter’s impassivity:

‘But how did it happen, my man? Did he fall down the stairs in a fit?’

‘Cut his throat, more likely,’ said MacBride.

Bunter, still looking at Peter, said with emphasis: ‘It isn’t suicide.’ Feeling the door thrust against his shoulder, he moved aside to admit Mrs Ruddle.

‘Oh, dear! oh, dear!’ cried Mrs Ruddle. Her eyes gleamed with a dismal triumph. ‘Is pore ‘ead’s bashed in something shocking!’

‘Bunter!’ said Wimsey, and spoke the word at last: ‘Are you trying to tell us that this is murder?’

Miss Twitterton slid from Harriet’s arms to the floor.

‘I couldn’t say, my lord; but it looks most unpleasantly like it.’

‘Get me a glass of water, please,’ said Harriet.

‘Yes, my lady. Mrs Ruddle! Glass of water-sharp!’

‘Very well," said Peter, mechanically pouring water into a goblet and giving it to the charwoman. ‘Leave everything as it is. Crutchley, you’d better go for the police.’

‘If,’ said Mrs Ruddle, ‘if it’s the perlice you’re wanting, there’s young Joe Sellon-that’s the constable, a-standing at my gate this very minit a-yarning with my Albert. I seen ‘im not five minutes agone, and if I knows anything o" them boys when they gits talking-’

‘The water,’ said Harriet. Peter stalked over to Crutchley, carrying with him a stiff peg of neat spirits.

‘Take this and pull yourself together. Then run over to the cottage and get this chap Sellon or whatever his name is. Quick.’

Thank you, my lord.’ The young man jerked himself from his daze and swallowed the whisky at a gulp. ‘It’s a bit of a shock.’

He went out. Mr Puffett followed him.

‘I suppose,’ said Mr Puffett, nudging Bunter gently in the ribs, ‘you didn’t manage to get that beer up afore-eh? Oh, well-there’s worse happens in war.’

‘She’s better now, pore thing,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘Come on, don’t give way now, there’s a dear. What you want is a nice lay-down and a cupper tea. Shall I take ’er upstairs, me lady?’

‘Do,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ll come in a moment.’

She let them go and turned to Peter, who stood motionless, staring down at the table. Oh, my God! she thought, startled by his face, he’s a middle-aged man-the half of life gone he mustn’t ‘Peter, my poor dear! And we came here for a quiet honeymoon!’

He turned at her touch and laughed ruefully.

‘Damn!’ he said. ‘And damn! Back to the old grind. Rigor mortis and who-saw-him-last, blood-prints, fingerprints, footprints, information received and it-is-my-dooty-to-warn-you. Quelle scie, mon dieu, quelle scie?’

A young man in a blue uniform put his head in at the door.

‘Now then.’ said Police-constable Sellon, ‘wot’s all this?’

– James Thomson: In the Room.

Harriet left Miss Twitterton tucked up on the nuptial couch with a hot-water bottle and an aspirin and, passing softly into the next room, discovered her lord in the act of pulling his shirt over his head. She waited for his face to reappear and then said, ‘Hullo!’

‘Hullo! All serene?’

‘Yes. Better now. What’s happening downstairs?’

‘Sellon’s telephoned from the post-office and the Super’s coming over from Broxford with the police-surgeon. So I came up to put on a collar and tie.’

Of course, thought Harriet, secretly entertained. Someone has died in our house, so we put on a collar and tie. Nothing could be more obvious. How absurd men are! And how clever in devising protective armour for themselves! What kind of tie will it be? Black would surely be excessive. Dull purple or an unobtrusive spot? No. A regimental tie. Nothing could be more proper. Purely official and committing one to nothing. Completely silly and charming.

She smoothed the smile from her lips and watched the solemn transference of personal property from blazer pockets to appropriate situations about a coat and waistcoat.

‘All this,’ observed Peter, ‘is a damned nuisance.’ He sat on the edge of the naked bedstead to exchange his slippers for a pair of brown shoes. ‘It’s not worrying you too much, is it?’ His voice was a little smothered with stooping to fasten the laces.

‘No.’

‘One thing, it’s nothing to do with us. That is, he wasn’t killed for the money we paid him. He had it all in his pocket. In notes.’

‘Good heavens!’

‘There’s not much doubt he meant to make a bolt of it when somebody intervened. I can’t say I feel any strong personal regret. Do you?’

‘Far from it. Only-’

‘M’m?…It is worrying you. Blast!’

‘Not really. Only when I think about him, lying down there in the cellar all the time. I know it’s perfectly idiotic of me-but I can’t help wishing we hadn’t slept in his bed.’

‘I was afraid you might feel like that.’ He got up and stood for a moment looking from the window over the sloping field and woodland that stretched away beyond the lane. ‘And yet, you know, that bed must be pretty nearly as old as the house-the original bits of it, anyhow. It could tell a good many tales of births and deaths and bridal-nights. One can’t escape from these things-except by living in a brand-new villa and buying one’s furniture in the Tottenham Court Road… All the same, I wish to God it hadn’t happened. I mean, if it’s going to make you uncomfortable every time you think about-’