“Yes, I think so-presently.”

“Then, my dear, do us all a favour and leave that hot knitting of yours behind. It is really quite unendurable to see you martyrizing yourself with that conflagration of crimson wool.” She looked back with the flashing smile which was one of her beauties and went out, shutting the door behind her.

Esther Field said in what sounded like a tone of apology,

“She didn’t really know the Annings at all well-she just knew them.”

Pippa’s light nervous laugh floated out.

“Oh, Aunt Esther, darling!”

Esther looked up, puzzled.

“Why, my dear-”

“She just doesn’t care a rap for anyone except herself- but you’d find excuses for anyone. Well, I’m off to get into a bathing-dress. I don’t care how low the tide is, Bill and I are going to walk out in it for miles. I adore catching those little squirly crabs with my toes, and if it never gets deep enough to swim, we can paddle and look for odd creatures in the pools- Bill knows quite a lot about them. And we’ll forget there’s ever been such a thing as a policeman or a murder-” The carefully made-up features dissolved suddenly into the face of a child who is going to cry.

As she ran out of the room, Miss Silver rose and followed her. Behind her, before she had time to close the door, she heard Maisie Trevor say with something very like a sniff,

“Really-that girl! How uncomfortable it all is! And Tom says we can’t go away until after the inquest!”

Miss Silver did not follow Pippa in her flight upstairs. The scarlet beach-shoes were, as a matter of fact, already taking the last two steps in a flying leap. As she emerged into the hall, Colonel Trevor was coming out of the study. Looking, not at her, but back over his shoulder, he said,

“All right then, James, I’ll see about it.”

Miss Silver let him go by and up the stairs, after which she opened the study door and went in.

James Hardwick was sitting at the writing-table with a pen in his hand, but he was not writing. His face was hard and set. He certainly wasn’t thinking about the reinvestment of some shares of Carmona’s which Tom Trevor had been talking over with him. He looked at Miss Silver with acceptance. After what had passed between them last night it was inevitable that she should return to the charge. Better get it over.

She came right up to the table before she said,

“I think you must have been expecting me. I was detained at Sea View, and on my return I met Mrs. Field and Lady Castleton on their way to the morning-room. It seemed best to give a little time to answering their very natural enquiries.”

“Yes?”

She said, “I should like to feel that we shall not be interrupted.”

“Colonel Trevor won’t come back. Carmona is the only other person who might look for me here. You want to speak to me?”

“Yes, Major Hardwick.”

The chair which Colonel Trevor had been using stood at a convenient angle to the table. She seated herself. James, who had risen, sat down again. The room had a faint smell of leather and old books. Green and white sun-blinds shaded it, giving a twilight effect. There was no breeze, and the air was hot. Miss Silver said,

“You will have heard of Marie Bonnet’s death. She ran a more immediate risk than I expected. I feel that we are both of us to blame.”

“You don’t expect me to agree about that?”

She said,

“I blame myself. If she was blackmailing a murderer, I knew that she must be in danger. I warned her, but I did not anticipate that the murderer would strike again so soon. I should have reflected that every moment Marie Bonnet continued to live was a moment of danger to a person who had killed once already-skillfully, ruthlessly, and without warning. Major Hardwick, you will not, I suppose, regard this, but if you know something about that person, I have to warn you that you are not only making yourself an accessory after the fact, but you are taking a very considerable risk. If your knowledge is suspected-and I think it may be-the person who has already killed twice will not hesitate at another crime.”

They sat looking at one another across the rubbed green leather and shining mahogany of the late Mr. Octavius Hardwick’s writing-table. There it was, a symbol of the solid Victorian age when a gentleman had everything handsome about him and as much elbow-room as he wanted. A massive silver inkstand with an inscription bore witness to an earlier Hardwick with forty years’ service on the Bench. He had been Nathaniel James, and the great-grandson to whom this trophy had descended was wont to feel some gratitude that he had been spared the Nathaniel. His glance left Miss Silver and dropped to the inscription. Against this background of respectability and worth the conversation in which he was now taking part appeared fantastic.

But there had been two murders, and he was being seriously warned that he might be the subject of a third. He spoke as much in protest against his own thoughts as against anything she had said.

“I think we need not exaggerate. And I think you are assuming a good deal. For one thing, I haven’t admitted to any special knowledge, and I don’t see that you have any grounds for imputing it. I have made a statement to the police. I have nothing to add to that statement.”

He heard his own words, and was aware that they received no credence. Abruptly, and with complete irrelevance, he was reminded of an examination taken when he was rising twelve. There was a viva, and he had gone in feeling quite all right, and then all at once his inside was shaking like a jelly and he got his very first answer wrong. He knew it was wrong because of the look in the examiner’s eye. At this moment Miss Silver had that identical look. He had made the wrong answer, and she was, not angry, but rather sorry about it. She said,

“Major Hardwick, I said last night that I would not press you then, but there has been another murder, and I feel obliged to do so now. I will tell you in confidence that the local police have made up their minds that Miss Anning is in this case the murderer, and since it is accepted that the motive is to be found in an attempt by Marie to blackmail the person who committed the earlier crime, this would also involve her in that. Mr. Cardozo is out of it. He had gone to London, and very fortunately for himself he was being shadowed by the police. It is not possible that he can have killed Marie. That leaves Mrs. Maybury and Miss Anning, and the circumstances of the second crime are such that they are considered to point strongly to Miss Anning. If you do not speak, she will be arrested in the morning. An accusation of this sort once brought is never wholly forgotten. Apart from the damage to her business, Mrs. Anning’s health would almost certainly be seriously affected. I believe that you are in a painful and difficult position, but I urge you to tell what you know.”

She was aware of a change in him. The antagonism between them was gone. His eyes were candid and serious.

“It might make very little difference.”

“You did not see the murder committed?”

“No-no-of course not!”

Something that was not quite a smile just touched her gravity. She said,

“I did not think you had. I believe you would not in that case have remained silent. What did you see?”

He threw out a hand.

“Just someone coming up from the beach.”

“After Mrs. Maybury went down?”

“Immediately after. Pippa was still crossing the shingle in the direction of the hut. Someone came up the path from the beach and went past me. That is all. You see how little it is.”

“But you know who it was?”

He remained silent.

“This person passed you, and went where? In the direction of Cliff Edge?”

“And of Sea View, and the town.”