The men were coming out of the sittingroom. They were introduced: Dr Craven, Superintendent Kirk, Sergeant Blades. The cellar door was opened; somebody produced an electric torch and they all went down. Harriet, relegated to the woman’s role of silence and waiting, went into the kitchen to help with the sandwiches. The role, though dull, was not a useless one, for Mrs Ruddle, with a large knife in her hand, was standing at the scullery door as though prepared to carry out a butcherly kind of post-mortem upon whatever might be brought up from the cellar.

‘Mrs Ruddle!’

Mrs Ruddle gave a violent start and dropped the knife.

‘Law, m’lady! You did give me a turn.’

‘You want to cut the bread thinner. And please shut that door.’

A slow, heavy shuffling. Then voices. Mrs Ruddle broke off in the middle of a spirited piece of narrative to listen.

‘Yes, Mrs Ruddle?’

‘Yes, m’lady. So I says to him, “You needn’t think you’re going to ketch me that way, Joe Sellon,” I says. “Like to make out you’re somebody, don’t you,” I says. “I wonder you ’as the face, seem’ what a fool you made of yourself over Aggie Twitterton’s ’ens. No,” I says, “when a proper policeman comes, ’e can ask all the questions ’e likes. But don’t you think you can go ordering me about,” I says, “an’ me old enough to be your grandma. You can put away that there notebook,” I says, “go on,” I says, “it’d make me old cat laugh ter see yer,” I says. “I’ll tell ’ em all I knows,” I says, “don’t you fret yourself, w’en the time comes.” “You ain’t no right,” ’e says, “to obstruct an orficer of the law.” “Law?” I says. “Call yerself the law? If you’re the law,” I says, “I don’t think much of it.” ’E got that red. “You’ll ’ear about this,” ’e says. And I says, “And you’ll ’ear summink, too. None o’ yer sauce,” I says. “They’ll be glad enough to ’ear what I ’as to tell ’em, I dessay, without you goin’ an’ twistin’ it all up afore they gets it,” I says. So ’e says-’

There was a peculiar mixture of malice and triumph in Mrs Ruddle’s voice which Harriet felt the episode of the hens did not altogether account for. But at this moment Bunter came in by the passage door.

‘His lordship’s compliments, my lady; and Superintendent Kirk would be glad to see you for a moment in the sittingroom if you can spare the time.’

Superintendent Kirk was a large man with a mild and ruminative expression. He seemed already to have obtained from Peter most of the information he needed, asking only a few questions to confirm such points as the time of the party’s arrival at Talboys and the appearance of the sittingroom and kitchen when they came in. What he really wanted to get from Harriet was a description of the bedroom. All Mr Noakes’s clothes had been there? His toilet articles? No suitcases? No suggestion that he intended to leave the house at once? No? Well, that confirmed the idea that Mr Noakes intended to get away, but was in no immediate hurry. Not, for example, particularly expecting any unpleasant interview that night. The Superintendent was much obliged. to her ladyship; he should be sorry to disturb poor Miss Twitterton, and, after all, nothing much was to be gained by examining the bedroom at once, since its contents had already been disturbed. That applied, of course, to the other rooms as well. Unfortunate, but nobody could be blamed for that. They might be a bit further on when they had Dr Craven’s report. He would perhaps be able to tell them whether Noakes had been alive when he fell down the cellar steps or had been killed and thrown there afterwards. No bloodshed, that was the trouble, though the skull had been broken by the blow. And with so many people in and out of the house all night and morning, one could scarcely expect footprints or anything like that. At any rate, nothing had been seen to suggest a struggle? Nothing. Mr Kirk was greatly obliged.

Harriet said. Not at all, and murmured something about lunch. The Superintendent said he saw no objection to that; he had finished with the sittingroom for the moment. He would just like a word with this fellow MacBride about the financial side of the business, but he would send him in a soon as he had done with him. He tactfully refused to join the party, but he accepted the offer of a mouthful of bread and cheese in the kitchen. When the doctor had finished, he would finish the interrogations in the light of whatever the medical examination might reveal.

Years afterwards. Lady Peter Wimsey was accustomed to say that the first few days of her honeymoon remained in her memory as a long series of assorted surprises, punctuated by the most incredible meals. Her husband’s impression were even less coherent; he said he had had, all the time the sensation of being slightly drunk and tossed in a blanket, The freakish and arbitrary fates must have given the blanket an especially energetic tweak, to have tossed him, towards the end of that strange, embarrassed luncheon, so high over the top of the world. He stood at the window, whistling, Bunter, hovering about the room, handing sandwiches and straightening out the last traces of disorder left after the sweep’s departure, recognised the tune. It was the one he had heard the night before in the woodshed. Nothing could have been less suited to the occasion, nothing should more deeply have offended his inborn sense of propriety; yet, like the poet Wordsworth, he heard it and rejoiced.

‘Another sandwich, Mr MacBride?’ (The newly-wedded lady doing the honours at her own table for the first time. Curious, but true.)

‘No more, thanks; much obliged to you.’ Mr MacBride swallowed the last drop of his beer and polished his mouth and fingers politely with his handkerchief. Bunter swept down upon the empty plate and glass.

‘I hope you’ve had something to eat, Bunter?’ (One must consider the servants. Only two fixed points in the universe: death, and the servants’ dinner; and there they both were.)

‘Yes, thank you, my lady.’

‘I suppose they’ll be wanting this room in a minute. Is the doctor still there?’

‘I believe he has concluded his examination, my lady.’

‘Nice job, I don’t think,’ said Mr MacBride.

‘La caill’, la tourterelle

Et la joli’ perdrix

Aupres de ma blonde

Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon.

Aupres de ma blonde-’

Mr MacBride looked round, scandalised. He had his own notions of propriety. Bunter darted hastily across the room and attracted the singer’s wandering attention.

‘Yes, Bunter?’

‘Your lordship will excuse me. But in view of the melancholy occasion-’

‘Eh, what? Oh, sorry. Was I making a noise?’

‘My dear-’ His swift, secret, reminiscent smile was a challenge; she beat it down, and achieved the right tone of wifely rebuke. ‘Poor Miss Twitterton’s trying to get to sleep.’

‘Yes. Sorry. Dashed thoughtless of me. And in a house of bereavement and all that.’ His face darkened with a sudden odd impatience. ‘Though, if you ask me, I doubt whether anybody-I say, anybody-feels particularly bereft.’

‘Except,’ said Mr MacBride, ‘that chap Crutchley with his forty pound. I fancy that grief’s genuine.’

‘From that point of view,’ said his lordship, ‘you should be the chief mourner.’

‘It won’t keep me awake at night,’ retorted Mr MacBride: ‘It ain’t my money, you see,’ he added frankly. He rose, opened the door and glanced out into the passage. ‘I only hope they’re getting a move on out there. I’ve got to toddle back to Town and see Mr Abrahams. Pity you ain’t on the telephone.’ He paused. ‘If I was you, I wouldn’t let it worry me. Seems to me, deceased was a dashed unpleasant old gink and well out of the way.’ He went out, leaving the atmosphere clearer, as though by the removal of funeral flowers.

‘I’m afraid that’s true,’ said Harriet.

‘Just as well, isn’t it?’ Wimsey’s tone was studiously light ‘When I’m investigating a murder, I hate to have too much sympathy with the corpse. Personal feelings cramp the style.’