Handesley was already waiting in the hall. Nigel and Angela were with him. Nigel was perhaps more shocked by the change in his host and more alive to it than to anything else that had happened since Rankin’s death. Handesley looked ghastly. His hands were tremulous and he moved with a kind of controlled hesitancy.

Alleyn came into the hall and was formally introduced by little Doctor Young, who seemed to be somewhat nonplussed by the Inspector’s markedly Oxonian voice.

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” said Handesley, “I am quite ready to answer any questions that you would like to put to me.”

“There are very few at the moment,” returned Alleyn. “Miss North and Mr. Bathgate have given me a clear account of what happened since yesterday afternoon. Could we, do you think, go into some other room?”

“The drawing-room is just here,” answered Handesley. “Do you wish to see us there in turn?”

“That will do splendidly,” agreed Alleyn.

“The others are in the library,” said Nigel. Handesley turned to the detective. “Then shall we go into the drawing-room?”

“I think I can ask you the few questions I want to put immediately. The others can come in there afterwards. I understand, Sir Hubert, that Mr. Rankin was an old friend of yours?”

“I have known him all his life — I simply cannot take it in — this appalling tragedy. It is incredible. We — we all knew him so well. It must have been someone from outside. It must.”

“How many servants do you keep? I should like to see them later on. But in the meantime if I may have their names.”

“Yes, of course. It is imperative that everyone should — should be able to give an account of himself. But my servants! I have had them for years, all of them. I can think of no possible motive.”

“The motive is not going to be one of the kind that socks you on the jaw. If I may have a list.”

“My butler is a Little Russian. He was my servant twenty years ago in Petersburg, and has been with me ever since.”

“He was well acquainted with Mr. Rankin?”

“Very well acquainted. Rankin has stayed here regularly for many years and has always been on excellent terms with my servants.”

“They tell me the dagger is of Russian origin.”

“Its history is Russian, its origin Mongolian,” said Sir Hubert. He briefly related the story of the knife.

“H’m,” said Alleyn. “Scratch a Russian and you use a Mongolian knife. Had your servant seen this delightful museum piece?”

“Yes. He must have seen it. Now I come to think of it he was in the hall when Rankin first produced it.”

“Did he comment on it in any way?”

“Vassily? No.” Handesley hesitated and turned to Nigel and Angela. “Wait a moment though. Didn’t he say something when Tokareff was holding forth about the knife and its association with a bratsvo?”

“I think he did,” said Nigel slowly. “He made some remark in Russian. Doctor Tokareff said, ‘This peasant agrees with me,’ and you, sir, told Vassily he could go.”

“That is how it was,” agreed Angela.

“I see. Rum coincidence that the knife, your butler and your guest should all be of the same nationality.”

“Not very odd,” said Angela. “Uncle Hubert has always kept up his interest in Russia — especially since the war. Charles was familiar with his collection of weapons and brought this horrible thing down specially for Uncle Hubert to see.”

“Yes. Is the dagger interesting from the point of view of the collector?”

Handesley winced and glanced at Angela. “It interested me enormously,” he said, “I offered to buy it.”

“Really? Did Mr. Rankin want to sell?”

There was a very uncomfortable pause. Nigel miserably cast about in his mind for something to say. Suddenly Angela broke the silence.

“You are very tired, Uncle Hubert,” she said gently, “let me tell Mr. Alleyn.” Without waiting for his reply she turned to the detective.

“Charles Rankin, in fun, wrote out a statement last night willing the knife to my uncle. Mr. Bathgate here and Mr. Arthur Wilde, another of our guests, signed the paper. It was all a joke.”

Alleyn, without any comment, made a note in his pocket-book. “Perhaps I may see this paper later on,” he said, “and now for the other servants.”

“All English,” said Angela, “except the cook, who is a Frenchman. There are three maids, two housemaids, and a little cockney — she’s a tweeny really — a sort of pantry man who, when we have large parties, does footman and helps Vassily, a kitchenmaid, and an odd-boy.”

“Thank you. Mr. Bathgate, you, I understand, are Mr. Rankin’s cousin. To your knowledge, had he any enemies? This, I know, sounds a childish inquiry, but I think I shall put it to you.”

“To my knowledge,” answered Nigel, “none. Obviously he had one.”

“Nobody who would benefit by his death?”

“Benefit?” Nigel’s voice grated suddenly. “My God, yes. I benefit. I believe he has left me the bulk of his property. You’d better arrest me, Inspector — I killed him for his money.”

“My good young man,” said Alleyn tartly, “please don’t muddle me with startling announcements of that sort. It is incredibly silly. Here are two witnesses to your theatricality. Pull yourself together and leave me to do my detecting. It’s tricky enough as it is, Lord knows.”

The unexpectedness of this rebuke had a very salutary effect on Nigel. For a second it lifted him out of his nightmare of shocked reactions.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t really want to leap into the handcuffs.”

“So I should hope. Now run off and find the assembled guests. I think the local blue-bottle buzzed something about the library. Send them along singly to the drawing-room; and, Miss North, will you find the servants?”

“Mrs. Wilde,” said Angela, “was in bed a little while ago. She is terribly upset.”

“I am sorry, but I should like everyone to be present.”

“Very well, I’ll tell her.” Angela went upstairs.

Having started off the examination with Arthur Wilde, Nigel waited with Sir Hubert in the garden. Apparently the detective spent a very short time over his interviews, for Nigel had smoked only two cigarettes when Mr. Bunce emerged with the tidings that the Chief Inspector was at Sir Hubert’s service. They went indoors and joined Alleyn. Handesley led the way down the hall, where Mr. Bunce still kept guard, into the big library that lay behind the drawing-room and the little gun-room. At the door he paused and looked intently at the Inspector.

“I see from your card,” he said courteously, “that your name is Roderick Alleyn. I was up at Oxford with a very brilliant man of that name. A relation perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” said the Inspector politely but uncommunicatively. He stepped back to allow Nigel to open the library door and they went in. Here all the others, with the exception of Marjorie Wilde, were already assembled. Tokareff’s voice could be heard booming as the door opened, and on their entrance they found him standing before the fire, bespectacled, earnest, and resoundingly verbose. Rosamund Grant, deadly white, was sitting in a far corner of the room, immaculate and withdrawn. Arthur Wilde, with an air of strained attention, appeared to be listening, dubiously, to the Russian’s dissertation. Doctor Young was fidgeting in the bow-window.

“… so to take a loife from my standpoint-of-view is not such a crime as to be always living a false loife,” shouted Tokareff. “Zhis is the real crime more deadly—” he stopped suddenly as Handesley and Alleyn, followed by Nigel and Angela, came towards him.

“Inspector Alleyn,” said Handesley briefly, “wishes to speak to us all for a moment.”

“Already,” began Tokareff, “we have been interviewed. Already the hunt is to begin. Excuse me please, but I must make myself clear to say—”

“Will you please sit round this table,” said Alleyn, incisively cutting through the clamour of Tokareff’s rumbling bass. They all moved across to a long writing table near the windows and seated themselves at it, Alleyn taking the head.