cap, and weeping so bitterly.’
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Rosamund fiercely. ‘I can’t—I can’t.’
‘As you please.’ Alleyn appeared to be suddenly indifferent. ‘Perhaps before I go you will let me have a few more details about yourself.’ He produced his notebook. ‘How long have you known Mr Rankin?’
‘Six years.’
‘Quite a long friendship—you could have scarcely been grown up when you first met.’
‘I was at Newnham; Charles was nearly twenty years older than I.’
‘At Newnham?’ said Alleyn, politely interested. ‘You must have been up with a cousin of mine—Christina Alleyn.’
Rosamund Grant waited for some seconds before she answered him.
‘Yes,’ she said at last, ‘yes—I remember her, I think.’
‘She is a fully-fledged chemist now,’ he told her, ‘and lives in an ultra-modern flat in Knightsbridge. Well, I shall be flayed alive by Doctor Young if I stay here any longer.’ He got up and stood over the bed. ‘Miss Grant,’ he said, ‘be advised by me. Think it over. I shall come here tomorrow. Make up your mind to tell me where you went to immediately before Mr Rankin was murdered.’
He walked to the door and opened it. ‘Think it over,’ he repeated, and went out.
Marjorie Wilde and her husband were standing in the passage.
‘How is she?’ asked Mrs Wilde quickly. ‘I want to go in and see her.’
‘Not a hope, I’m afraid. It’s strictly against orders,’ answered Alleyn cheerfully.
‘There you are, Marjorie,’ said Wilde. ‘What did I tell you? Wait till you’ve seen Doctor Young. I am sure Rosamund does not want visitors.’
‘You saw her!’ said Mrs Wilde to Alleyn. ‘I should have thought that would be worse than any ordinary visitor.’
‘Marjorie darling!’ ejaculated Wilde.
‘Oh, everybody loves a policeman,’ remarked Alleyn. ‘She was thrilled to see me.’
‘Marjorie!’ called Angela’s voice from the stairs.
Mrs Wilde looked from her husband to the inspector.
‘Marjorie!’ called Angela again.
‘Coming!’ answered Mrs Wilde suddenly. ‘I’m coming!’ And she turned away and walked quickly towards the stairs.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Wilde, looking troubled. ‘She’s not exactly herself, and she had made up her mind to see Miss Grant. It’s a horrible experience for a woman, all this.’
‘It is, indeed,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘Are you coming down, Mr Wilde?’
Wilde glanced at the closed door.
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said, and they went down together.
Alleyn had finished at Frantock for the time being, but he did not yet feel entitled to call it a day. His next move was to the police station at Little Frantock, where he put through a long-distance call to London. He waited a minute and then spoke into the receiver:
‘Christina!’ he said. ‘Is it yourself! What a bit of luck! Look here, you can help me if you will. It’s your cousin the policeman, and he’s up agin it, my dear. Drag your mind away from shattered atoms and bicarbonate of soda, cast it back six years, and tell me everything—everything you can remember about one Rosamund Grant who was up at Newnham with you.’
A miniature voice crackled in the ear-piece.
‘Yes,’ said Alleyn, getting out his pencil and straightening the message block by the telephone, ‘yes.’
The voice crackled on. Alleyn extended his call. He wrote busily, and gradually a curious expression—eager, doubtful, intensely concentrated—stole over his face. It was a look with which they were very familiar at the Yard.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Nigel to old Mr Benningden, ‘I’ll walk as far as the front gates with you.’
‘Pleasure, my dear fellow,’ replied the lawyer, with hurried cordiality. He snapped the catch of his grip, took off his pince-nez, eyed them severely, gave Nigel a quick glance, and took his coat and hat from the attendant Robert.
‘Come along,’ he said decisively, and made for the door.
‘You were always an imaginative, sensitive sort of individual,’ said Mr Benningden, as they walked down the drive. ‘I remember your mother worrying her head off about it; but I put it to her that your boyish troubles were as short-lived as they were distressing. You will soon get over your ridiculous antipathy to accepting this bequest.’
‘It’s all so beastly,’ said Nigel. ‘I know they can’t suspect me in any way, but—I dunno. It’s not that so much as the idea of it. Benefiting by a filthy murder.’
‘Sir Hubert Handesley and Mr Arthur Wilde are also legatees—they probably feel very much the same about it, but of course they have approached the matter in a much more sensible manner. Do you follow their example, my dear Nigel.’
‘Very well. I’ll be jolly glad of the money in a way, of course.’
‘Of course, of course. Do not suppose that I am insensible of the delicacy of your position.’
‘Oh, Benny!’ said Nigel, half affectionate and half irritated, ‘do stop talking like the old family lawyer. Really, you are quite incredible!’
‘Indeed?’ said Mr Benningden amicably. ‘It has become automatic, possibly.’
They walked on in silence until Nigel asked him abruptly if he knew anything in his cousin’s life that could throw light on the murder.
‘I don’t want you to betray any secrets, of course,’ he added quickly; ‘you wouldn’t pay much attention if I did. But had Charles an enemy or enemies?’
‘I have been asking myself that question ever since this dreadful crime took place,’ replied Mr Benningden, ‘but I can think of nothing. Your cousin’s relationships with women were, shall we say, of a slightly ephemeral nature, my dear Nigel; but so are those of many bachelors of his age. Even this aspect of his life, I hoped, was soon to be stabilized. He came to me two months ago and, after a good many circumlocutions, gave me to understand he was contemplating matrimony. I think I may safely go so far as to say he asked one or two questions about a marriage settlement, and so on.’
‘The devil he did!’ ejaculated Nigel. ‘Who was the girl?’
‘My dear boy, I don’t think—’
