movement, gowned in black as became her widowhood. It was a point that arrested Maria’s attention for a moment. Now she came to notice it only Patricia had disdained mourning by wearing bright emerald green.
“So sorry I have been rather long, Maria dear,” Alice went on, patting her hair. “I had one or two things to do and the time just rushed away. I think time goes terribly fast when you don’t watch it, don’t you? But—but look, you must meet Janet and—.”
“We’ve been through all that, mother,” Patricia butted in. “Right now our main concern—mine anyway—is dinner. When do we start? I’m hungry....” Then her lovely young face suddenly lighted as Walters appeared with his grave pronouncement.
“Dinner is served.”
Dick asked eagerly, “May I?”—and before Maria could even guess his intention he had drawn her arm through his own. With a grave smile he added, “I hope you don’t mind? Fact of the matter is I’ve long wanted to feel what it is like to meet a Headmistress on equal terms. I sort of get a kick out of taking one in to dinner.”
Maria’s eyes moved to Pat’s elegant form preceding them. “I’m glad you don’t think I’m an old dragon, Richard.”
“Pat getting in your hair? Don’t let her. She talks like a chump at times.... Look, after dinner maybe we can get down to cases a little. I still think dad was murdered, you know. You have met the family now, seen the boss of the domestics in the form of Walters; so what next do you want to do?”
“If possible I would like to see the room where your father died.”
“Okay. You shall!”
* * * *
During dinner Maria skillfully steered the conversation away from the commonplace of her profession to the subject closest her heart. Long the expert technician in rooting out details without giving offence she began to feel almost as though she were back at Roseway with a bunch of guilty pupils on the carpet.
“I suppose,” she said, during a lull in the conversation, “that it is not very easy for us to sit here in a family group and try to forget what is uppermost in all our minds? I know I cannot.”
“You mean—poor Ralph?” Alice sighed.
“Do we have to go through it all again?” Pat groaned. “How is one to ever forget the rotten business if it’s constantly raked up and paraded?”
Maria’s cold blue eyes wandered to her. There was a venom in this girl she could not quite understand. Nor did it seem to come by her too easily. She was too intelligent, too gifted by nature, to be a natural spitfire.
“I think,” Maria said, “that you have overlooked my absence, Patricia. I have come three thousand miles for first-hand details, not only to see attorney Johnson. I want to know just why your father did such a dreadful thing. What really did happen?”
“I’m afraid most of us got the news second-hand,” Janet said quietly. “I was not here on that evening. I was giving a singing recital at the theater and Dad had promised to listen in to my concert—as indeed he always did on the first and last days of my recitals. He said he could tell by doing this how my voice had improved, or deteriorated, in the interval....” She gave a little shrug. “When I got home around midnight the thing had happened. Mother gave me the full details.... It was a terrible, dreadful shock!”
Alice took the story up. “Walters was the first to discover things were wrong. Ralph used to ring for his wine in an evening, you see. Sometimes early, sometimes late. He used to lock his door when listening to Janet.... Well, he rang for his wine all right, but when Walters arrived the library door was still locked. Walters got alarmed at length, asked me what should be done. In the end we broke in by the French window....”
Alice paused, bit her lip at her recollections.
“There was Ralph in his armchair, a bullet wound in his temple. It was horrible! Horrible! The radio was going full blast too. I remember Walters switched it off, then he sent for the police. As you are aware, however, the final verdict was suicide. It could hardly have been anything else. It seemed queer he should ring for his wine and then shoot himself; that was why we had a police enquiry just—just in case somebody— But it was suicide. Ghastly, I know—but it had to be faced.”
Maria glanced at Patricia and then Dick.
“What of you two? Did you lend any sort of assistance?”
“I was out with my town show,” Dick shrugged. “I didn’t get home until long after Janet.”
“I was out too,” Patricia said, with a defiant little smile. “I spent the evening with friends....”
“So,” Maria murmured, “everybody was out except you, Alice, and the servants?”
She nodded, then looked rather surprised. “But does it make any point, Maria dear? Or are you— Good Lord, I do believe you are trying to read something else into the horrible business!”
“No.” Maria shook her dark head briefly. “No—not yet. But when we are finished I would like to see his library. I’m not a morbid woman but I am a stickler for details and I want to know exactly how and where he met his end.”
“Sounds like going over old ground to me,” Patricia sighed. “Anyway, you won’t need me, will you?”
“I would rather have liked all of you to co-operate,” Maria said. “I’ve still one or two things to get absolutely clear in my mind.”
“But why?” Genuine fury blazed in Patricia’s green eyes. “Just why do you have to come here and rake up this tragedy again? Why do we have to suffer it all over again just because you want a—a reconstruction? The police went over all the ground and the thing’s finished with. You know just as much as we do!”
“Just what’s the matter with you tonight, Pat?” Dick snapped. “What are you going off half-cocked about? After all, Aunt’s entitled to some explanations. As she says, she wasn’t here when the thing happened.”
Janet said: “I think you can rest assured we’re all willing to do what we can to give you a true picture, Aunt. Of course, I don’t much care myself to have old unhappy memories revived, but I also know what is common sense.... That’s for you, Pat,” she added dryly.
“All right—all right!” Pat subsided again and threw down her serviette impatiently. “But I still resent the insinuation that we’re all a bunch of criminals or something! Yes, that is what it amounts to!” she cried, glaring at the faces directed towards her. “Here are we, a perfectly respectable family with our private tragedy—then along comes Aunt Maria from England to question us all and rake up old dirt.... Good Heavens, Aunt, one would almost think dad was murdered!”
“What makes you think he wasn’t?” Dick asked quietly—then seeing Maria’s look of surprise he went on, “You might as well all know now as later on. I asked Aunt not to spring it on you—not to tell you that I sent for her as well as attorney Johnson. I told her that I did not like the circumstances of dad’s death. It looked like suicide: the police were satisfied it was suicide.... But I’m not!”
“Are you trying to suggest...?” Pat’s eyes went wide. “You mean to say somebody killed father?”
“Yes!”
