Jim stared at him, his brows knit. "Any ideas on the subject?" he said.

"That's a large question, Mr. Kane. Guess we can all of us have ideas, but believe me, there's more harm done spreading them about than by keeping them to yourself." His deep-set eyes fell on Miss Allison. He said significantly: "Maybe you'd like to take Miss Allison out of this."

"I'm all right," said Patricia, pressing her handkerchief to her lips.

Timothy's voice was heard in the garden. "I say, what's up?" he panted. "I swear I heard a shot!"

Oscar Roberts moved swiftly to the window, to block the view, just as young Mr. Harte came plunging out onto the path from the shrubbery.

"Hullo, Mr. Roberts!" said Timothy. "Who's shooting around here?"

Roberts said quickly: "Hullo, son! Whereabouts have you been?"

"Well, I went down to the lodge to meet you, but--"

"That's fine. Look, now! Did you see anyone?"

Timothy stared. "No, only Mr. Dermott. I say, what on earth--"

Miss Allison gave a start and groped for a chair. "Jim! He couldn't have--"

"Shut up, of course not!" said Jim roughly. "Keep calm!"

"Mr. Dermott?" repeated Roberts in his drawling voice. "I get you. And what was he doing?"

"I don't know. He looked like nothing on earth. He simply bolted for his car and went off at about a hundred miles an hour. Has he had a row with Clement, or something?"

Jim removed his hand from Miss Allison's grasp and joined Roberts at the window. "I say, Timothy, push off, will you, and keep your mouth shut? There's been-an accident or something.

Clement's been shot."

Timothy's eyes grew round; speechless, he stared at his stepbrother. Jim said: "Go and keep Aunt Emily company, old thing. Do you mind?"

"Gosh!" gasped Timothy and, ducking under Jim's arm, thrust his head and shoulders into the room. A moment later he withdrew them, started to say something, and ended by vanishing discreetly into the shrubbery. When he reappeared he was rather wan of countenance and made no further attempt to look into the study. "Sorry!" he said jerkily. "Ate something that disagreed with me. Who-who did it?"

"We don't know. Clear out, and keep Aunt Emily away. See?"

Mr. Harte, unusually subdued, said that he did and departed.

Jim turned back into the room. "Come on, Pat; you can't do anything here. As far as I can see, there's nothing to be done till the police turn up. Suppose you clear out?"

"Yes," she agreed, getting up. "Of course. I'll go to Mrs. Kane. Do you want me to tell her-or-or what?"

"I should think you'd be the best person. Feel all right?"

"Perfectly, thanks." She moved to the still-open door and went out and through the drawing room to the south side of the house, where she had left Emily.

Emily was standing by her chair, leaning on her ebony cane, with her other hand on Timothy's arm.

Ogle was engaged in spreading her rug over the chair for her to sit on, fussily scolding.

"That'll do!" said Emily snappishly. "I suppose I can stretch my legs if I choose? Anyone would think I was decrepit. I've had a little stroll, and I feel the better for it." She sank down into her chair, rather out of breath, and allowed Ogle to fold the ends of the rug over her knees. "You can tell Jim that Ogle brought the rug," she informed Miss Allison.

Ogle, on her knees and tucking Emily's feet up tenderly, raised her head and said pugnaciously: "I knew she'd feel the wind chilly. I didn't want telling to fetch her rug. Left alone like she was!"

A phantasmagoria of nightmarish conjecture for an instant possessed Miss Allison's brain. She looked from the maid's dark countenance, upturned to hers, to Emily's wrinkled one, with the clenched jaw and the remote eyes staring straight ahead. She said hurriedly: "Mrs. Kane, there is something I've got to tell you. It's very bad news."

Emily's grim mouth twitched sardonically. She glanced up. "I dare say I can stand it. What's the matter now?"

"Mr. Clement has been shot," said Miss Allison baldly.

There was a long pause. Ogle's head was bent over her task; her hands arranged the rug mechanically.

"What do you mean by that?" said Emily at last. "Is he dead?"

"Yes, Mrs. Kane."

"Murdered!" said Timothy.

The old eyes snapped at him. "I didn't suppose it was suicide!" said Emily sharply.

"Didn't you hear the shot? I did!"

"No, I did not," said Emily. Her hands folded themselves together in her lap. "So Clement's dead!" she said. "He's no loss."

Miss Allison saw Rosemary coming towards them from the direction of the lake and realised that she had been forgotten by them all. She said: "Oh, good heavens! Mrs. Clement!--"

Emily looked contemptuous. "Well, she won't break her heart over it." She watched Rosemary's slow approach. "Where's that Dermott?" she asked abruptly.

"He's gone," Patricia answered before Timothy could speak.

"H'm!"

"I think, if you don't mind," said Timothy, "that I'll go and see what's happening indoors."

"I don't think they really want you," said Patricia, sympathising with his evident desire to escape from what promised to be a highly emotional scene.

"I like their darned cheek!" Timothy said indignantly. "Who was it who said all along it was murder? You know jolly well it was me! I bet some people are feeling pretty silly now, that's all!"

"He's probably right," said Emily as he disappeared into the house. "I don't know where he gets his wits from. His mother never had any, and his father always seems to me a fool. You needn't stand about, Ogle; I don't want you."

"You don't-surely you don't connect this with Mr. Kane's death?" said Patricia.

"I never said so, did I?" retorted Emily. She waited for Rosemary to mount the shallow steps onto the terrace and then nodded an imperious summons to her.

Rosemary, whose air of wistful renunciation proclaimed unmistakably to those who knew the circ.u.mstances that she had given Trevor Dermott his congee came up to her and said: "Do you want me, Aunt Emily? I was just going up to my room. I want to be alone just for a little while."

This speech clearly invited question, but Emily replied in her flattest tone: "You'd better know before you go any farther that your husband's been shot."

Rosemary looked blankly down at her. "My husband? Clement?"

"You've only one as far as I know," said Emily testily.

Under her delicate make-up Rosemary had turned very pale. There was fright in her eyes, fixed painfully on Emily's face. She faltered: "When?"

"Just now-or so I imagine," replied Emily. She looked up over her shoulder at Patricia. "Wasn't it?"

"Yes. About twenty minutes ago, I suppose. Will you sit down, Mrs.-I mean Rosemary?"

Rosemary shook her head, moistening her lips. "No, I'm all right. I don't seem able to grasp it, quite. My mind feels numb. It's the oddest sensation. As though--"

Emily interrupted with her usual ruthlessness: "There's no need to tell me what you feel like. I've never been interested in your sensations yet, and I never shall be, what's more."

"It's too terrible, too ghastly!" Rosemary said. "How-how did it happen?"

She looked at Patricia, but it was Emily who replied: "That's for the police to discover."

Rosemary looked as though she were going to faint.

Patricia moved quickly to her side and took her arm. "I'll take you up to your room," she said.

"It's a dreadful shock for you."

Rosemary made a vague gesture. "Everything seems black! I can't realise it. I simply don't seem to be able to take it in."

Emily gave a short laugh under her breath but said nothing more. Miss Allison led Rosemary in through the drawing room to the hall. Here they were checked by the sight of a uniformed police-sergeant and a man in plain clothes who was speaking to Oscar Roberts.

Rosemary gave an uncontrollable start; her long pointed fingernails dug into Miss Allison's arm; Patricia heard the quick intake of her breath and gave her hand a rea.s.suring squeeze.

Jim Kane turned. "Oh!-- Just a moment, Rosemary. Take her into the morning room, Pat.

The inspector wants to ask her one or two questions."

Miss Allison could not help thinking that he seemed to have changed from the man she knew into a rather forbidding stranger. He gave her a brief hint of a smile and walked across the hall to open the door into the morning room.

"I don't know anything!" Rosemary said rather too loudly. "I feel utterly dazed. I can't think! For G.o.d's sake don't leave me, Patricia!"

"It's all right; I won't go," Patricia said soothingly.

Jim shut the door on them. Rosemary sank into a chair, shivering. "Oh G.o.d, I feel most frightfully sick!" she said, pressing her hands to her temples. "What does he want to see me for? I wasn't even in the house. I can't tell him anything. I don't know anything. Where are you going?" Her voice rose on a note of panic.

"Only to get you something to help you pull yourself together. I won't be a minute."

"No, no, don't! I simply can't bear it. He might come in at any moment!"

Patricia came back to her side but said sensibly: "Well, you must try to calm yourself. The inspector won't eat you. Don't you see that you're one of the first people he's bound to want to talk to?

Honestly, there's nothing to be afraid of."

"Oh, I know, but when one's nerves have had a frightful shock, one simply isn't oneself. I really do feel as though I were going to be sick, or faint, or something."

At this moment Jim came into the room with a gla.s.s in his hand. Rosemary was rocking herself slightly, giving little dry sobs. He went to her and, putting his arm round her shoulders, held the gla.s.s to her lips. "It's only brandy-- Come along!"

Her teeth chattered against the gla.s.s, but she swallowed the spirit and said chokingly: "Thanks.

What does that awful man want with me?"

"He isn't awful. Quite human," Jim replied.

"There's something about policemen that makes one's inside turn upside down," said Rosemary.

"I can't help it. I shall be all right in a minute."

"Have they found out anything, Jim?" asked Miss Allison in a low voice.

Over Rosemary's head his eyes met hers for a moment. "No. Not yet."

"What's going to happen?"

"I don't know. Looks like a nasty mess. Do you feel fit enough to see Inspector Carlton now, Rosemary?"

"As long as he doesn't expect me to think!" said Rosemary unpromisingly.

Jim went out again, and in a few minutes the inspector came into the room.

His initial speech of sympathy for the murdered man's widow and his apology for being obliged to disturb her at such a time did much to restore Rosemary's poise. She stopped rocking herself to and fro and achieving a wan smile explained that she was one of those excessively highly-strung people whose nerves were simply unequal to the task of bearing her up in the face of disaster.

The inspector said that he quite understood.

"Everything seems to be a blank," added Rosemary, pa.s.sing a hand across her eyes.

"I am sure no one could be surprised that you should feel like that, madam. It must be a terrible shock. I understand you were not in the house when it happened."

"Thank G.o.d, no!" answered Rosemary with a strong shudder. "I think I should have gone quite, quite mad."

"Yes indeed, madam. I wonder if you would mind telling me just where you were at the time?"

"I think I must have been down by the lake. I went there-oh, at about three, I should think. Miss Allison saw me go, didn't you, Patricia?"

Miss Allison corroborated this and found herself favoured by the inspector with a long searching look.

"Miss Allison?" he said.

"Yes."

"You are Mrs. John Kane's secretary, I understand?"

"Yes."