BELSIZE: Sugar?... As a matter of fact, you might be useful. Any of you may be useful. Mind my pipe?

_MRS. BRAMSON blows in disgust and waves her hand before her face._

MRS. BRAMSON: Is it about my maid having an illegitimate child?

BELSIZE: I beg your pardon?... Oh no! That sort of thing's hardly in my line, thank G.o.d ... Lonely spot ... (_To MRS. TERENCE_) Long way for you to walk every day, isn't it?

MRS. TERENCE: I don't walk. I cycle.

BELSIZE: Oh.

MRS. BRAMSON: What's the matter?

BELSIZE: I just thought if she walked she might use some of the paths, and have seen--something.

(Note: The following pair of lines are spoken simultaneously.)

MRS. BRAMSON: Something of what?

MRS. TERENCE: Something?

BELSIZE: I'll tell you. I--

_A piano is heard in the sun-room, playing the "Merry Widow" waltz.

(Casually_) Other people in the house?

MRS. BRAMSON (_calling shrilly_): Mr. Laurie!

_The piano stops._

HUBERT'S VOICE (_as the piano stops, in the sun-room_): Yes?

MRS. BRAMSON (_to OLIVIA, sourly_): Did you ask him to play the piano?

_HUBERT comes back from the sun-room._

HUBERT (_breezily_): h.e.l.lo, house on fire or something?

MRS. BRAMSON: Very nearly. This is Mr.--er--Bel--

BELSIZE: Belsize.

MRS. BRAMSON (_drily_): Of Scotland Yard.

HUBERT: Oh.... (_Apprehensive_) It isn't about my car, is it?

BELSIZE: No.

HUBERT: Oh. (_Shaking hands affably_) How do you do?

BELSIZE: How do you do, sir....

MRS. BRAMSON: He's a friend of Miss Grayne's here. Keeps calling.

BELSIZE: Been calling long?

MRS. BRAMSON: Every day for two weeks. Just before lunch.

HUBERT: Well--

OLIVIA (_sitting on the sofa_): Perhaps I'd better introduce myself. I'm Olivia Grayne, Mrs. Bramson's niece. I work for her.

BELSIZE: Oh, I see. Thanks. Well now ...

HUBERT (_sitting at the table, effusively_): I know a chap on the Stock Exchange who was taken last year and shown over the Black Museum at Scotland Yard.

BELSIZE (_politely_): Really--

MRS. BRAMSON: And what d'you expect the policeman to do about it?

HUBERT: Well, it was very interesting, he said. Bit ghoulish, of course--

BELSIZE: I expect so.... (_Getting down to business_) Now I wonder if any of you've seen anything in the least out of the ordinary round here lately? Anybody called--anybody strange wandering about in the woods--overheard anything?

_They look at one another._

MRS. BRAMSON: The only visitor's been the doctor--and the district nurse.

MRS. TERENCE: Been ever so gay.

HUBERT: As a matter of fact, funny thing did happen to me. Tuesday afternoon it was, I remember now.

BELSIZE: Oh?

HUBERT (_graphically_): I was walking back to my cottage from golf, and I heard something moving stealthily behind a tree, or a bush, or something.

BELSIZE (_interested_): Oh, yes?

HUBERT: Turned out to be a squirrel.

MRS. BRAMSON (_in disgust_): Oh!...

HUBERT: No bigger than my hand! Funny thing to happen, I thought.

BELSIZE: Very funny. Anything else?

HUBERT: Not a thing. By Jove, fancy walking in the woods and stumbling over a dead body! Most embarra.s.sing!