gusto.’
‘Good. We all went quietly upstairs and said goodnight in whispers on the landing. My room is at the end of the landing and overlooks the side lawn. Terry’s is opposite Auntie Florence’s and there’s a bathroom next door to her that is opposite Uncle Arthur’s dressing-room where he was sleeping. He’d once had a bad attack in the night and Auntie always left the communicating door open so that he could call to her. He remembered afterwards that this door was shut and that he’d opened it a crack and listened, thinking, as I had thought, how still she was. The boys’ rooms are down the corridor and the servants’ quarters at the back. When I came out in my dressing-gown to go to the bathroom, I met Terry. We could hear Uncle Arthur moving about quietly in his room. I glanced down the corridor and saw Douglas there and, farther along, Fabian in the door of his room. We all had candles, of course. We didn’t speak. It seemed to me that we were all listening. We’ve agreed, since, that we felt not exactly uneasy but not quite comfortable. Restless. I didn’t go to sleep for some time, and when I did it was to dream that I was searching in rather terrifying places for the diamond clip. It was somewhere in the wool-shed but I couldn’t find it because the party had started and Auntie Florence was making a speech on the edge of a precipice. I was late for an appointment and hunted in that horribly thwarted way one does in nightmares. I wouldn’t have bored you with my dream if it hadn’t turned into the dark staircase with me feeling on the treads for the brooch. The stairs creaked like they do at night, but I knew somebody was crossing the landing and I was terrified and woke up. The point is,’ said Ursula, leaning forward and looking directly at Alleyn, ‘somebody really was crossing the landing.’
The others stirred. Fabian reached over to the wood box and flung a log on the fire. Douglas muttered impatiently. Terence Lynne put down her knitting and folded her elegant hands together in her lap.
‘In what direction?’ Alleyn asked.
‘I’m not sure. You know how it is. Dream and waking overlap, and by the time you are really alert the sound that came into your dream and woke you has stopped. I simply know that it was real.’
‘Mrs Duck returning from the party,’ said Terence.
‘But it was three o’clock, Terry. I heard the grandfather strike about five minutes later and Duckie says they got back at a quarter to two.’
‘They’d hung about, cackling,’ said Douglas.
‘For an hour and a quarter? And, anyway, Duckie would come up the back stair. I don’t suppose it amounts to anything, Mr Alleyn, because we know now that – that it hadn’t – that it happened away from the house. It must have. But I don’t care what any one says,’ Ursula said, lifting her chin, ‘somebody was about on the landing at five minutes to three that morning.’
‘And we don’t know definitely and positively,’ said Fabian, ‘that it wasn’t Flossie herself.’
CHAPTER THREE ACCORDING TO DOUGLAS GRACE
I
Fabian’s suggestion raised a storm of protest. The two girls and Douglas Grace began at once to combat it. It seemed to Alleyn that they thrust it from them as an idea that shocked and horrified their emotions rather than offended their reason. In the blaze of firelight that sprang from the fresh log he saw Terence Lynne’s hands weave together.
She said sharply, ‘That’s a beastly thing to suggest, Fabian.’
Alleyn saw Douglas Grace slide his arm along the sofa behind Terence. ‘I agree,’ Douglas said. ‘Not only beastly but idiotic. Why in God’s name should Flossie stay out until three in the morning, return to her room, go out again and get murdered?’
‘I didn’t say it was likely. I said it wasn’t impossible. We can’t prove it wasn’t Flossie.’
‘But what possible reason –’
‘A rendezvous?’ Fabian suggested, and looked out of the corner of his eyes at Terence.
‘I consider that’s a remark in abominable taste, Fab,’ said Ursula.
‘Do you, Ursy? I’m sorry. Must we never laugh a little at people after they are dead? But I’m very sorry. Let’s go back to our story.’
‘I’ve finished,’ said Ursula shortly and there was an uncomfortable silence.
‘As far as we’re concerned,’ said Douglas at last, ‘that’s the end of the story. Ursula went into Aunt Floss’s room the next morning to do it out, and she noticed nothing wrong. The bed was made but that meant nothing because we all do our own beds and Ursy simply thought Flossie had tidied up before she left.’
‘But it was odd all the same,’ said Terence. ‘Mrs Rubrick’s sheets were always taken off when she went away and the bed made up again the day she returned. She always left it unmade, for that reason.’
‘It didn’t strike me at the time,’ said Ursula. ‘I ran the carpet sweeper over the floor and dusted and came away. It was all very tidy. She was a tremendously orderly person.’
‘There was another thing that didn’t strike you, Ursula,’ said Terence Lynne. ‘You may remember that you took the carpet sweeper from me and that I came for it when you’d finished. It wanted emptying and I took it down to the rubbish bin. I noticed there was something twisted round one of the axles, between the wheel and the box. I unwound it.’ Terence paused, looking at her hands. ‘It was a lock of wool,’ she said tranquilly. ‘Natural wool, I mean, from the fleece.’
‘You never told us that,’ said Fabian sharply.
‘I told the detective. He didn’t seem to think it important. He said that was the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the house at shearing-time. He was a town-bred man.’
‘It might have been there for ages, Terry,’ said Ursula.
‘Oh, no. It wasn’t there when you borrowed the sweeper from me. I’m very observant of details,’ said Terence, ‘and I know. And if Mrs Rubrick had seen it she’d have picked it up. She hated bits on the carpet. She had a “thing” about them and always picked them up. I’ll swear it wasn’t there when she was in the room.’
‘How big was it?’ Fabian demanded.
‘Quite small. Not a lock, really. Just a twist.’
‘A teeny-weeny twist,’ said Ursula in a ridiculous voice, suddenly gay again. She had a chancy way with her, one moment nervously intent on her memories, the next full of mockery.
‘I suppose,’ said Alleyn, ‘one might pick up a bit of wool in the shed and, being greasy, it might hang about on one’s clothes?’
‘It might,’ said Fabian lightly.
‘And being greasy,’ Douglas added, ‘it might also hang about in one’s room.’
‘Not in Auntie Floss’s room,’ Ursula said. ‘I always did her room, Douglas, you shan’t dare to say I left greasy wool lying squalidly about for days on the carpet. Pig!’ she mocked at him.
He turned his head lazily
