“And you could hear them talking?”

She said angrily, “What say we could? We weren’t snooping, if that’s what you mean. We didn’t hear a word. She laughed — once.”

“And then?”

“He came out and went downstairs.”

“And did you go in to Miss Bellamy?”

“No,” Florence said loudly.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t reckon she’d want me.”

“But why?”

“I didn’t reckon she would.”

“Had you,” he asked without emphasis, “had a row of some sort with Miss Bellamy?”

She went very white. “What are you getting at?” she demanded and then, “I told you. I understood her. Better than anyone.”

“And there’d been no trouble between you?”

“No!” she said loudly.

He decided not to press this point. “So what did you do?” he asked. “You and Mrs. Plumtree?”

“Stayed where we was. Until…”

“Yes?”

“Until we heard something.”

“What was that?”

“Inside her room. Something. Kind of a crash.”

“What was it, do you think?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was going in to see, whether or no, when I heard Mr. Templeton in the hall. Calling. I go down to the half-landing,” Florence continued, changing her tense for the narrative present. “He calls up, they’re waiting for her. So I go back to fetch her. And…” for the first time her voice trembled. “And I walk in.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Before we go on, Florence, will you tell me this? Did Mr. Richard at this time seem at all upset?”

“That’s right,” she said, again with that air of defiance.

“When he arrived?” She nodded. “I see. And when he came out of Miss Bellamy’s room?”

And now there was no mistaking Florence’s tone. It was one of pure hatred.

“ ’Im? ’E looked ghasterly. ’E looked,” said Florence, “like death.”

As if, by this one outburst, she had bestowed upon herself some kind of emotional bloodletting, Florence returned to her earlier manner — cagey, grudging, implicitly resentful. Alleyn could get no more from her about Richard Dakers’s behaviour. When he suggested, obliquely, that perhaps Old Ninn might be more forthcoming, Florence let fall a solitary remark. “Her!” she said. “You won’t get her to talk. Not about him!” and refused to elaborate.

He had learned to recognize the point at which persistence defeats its own end. He took her on to the time where she entered the bedroom and discovered her mistress. Here, Florence exhibited a characteristic attitude towards scenes of violence. It was, he thought, as if she recognized in her own fashion their epic value and was determined to do justice to the current example.

When she went into the room, Mary Bellamy was on her knees, her hands to her throat and her eyes starting. She had tried to speak but had succeeded only in making a terrible retching noise. Florence had attempted to raise her, to ask her what had happened, but her mistress, threshing about on the floor, had been as unresponsive to these ministrations as an animal in torment. Florence had thought she heard the word “doctor.” Quite beside herself, she had rushed out of the room and downstairs. “Queer,” she said. That was what she had felt. “Queer.” It was “queer” that at such a moment she should concern herself with Miss Bellamy’s nonappearance at her party. It was “queer” that a hackneyed theatre phrase should occur to her in such a crisis but it had and she remembered using it, “Is there a doctor in the house?” though, of course, she knew, really that Dr. Harkness was one of the guests. On the subject of Dr. Harkness she was violent.

“Him! Nice lot of help he give, I don’t think! Silly with what he’d taken and knew it. Couldn’t make up his mind where he was or what he was wanted for till the Colonel shoved ice down his neck. Even then he was stupid-like and had to be pushed upstairs. For all we know,” Florence said, “ ’e might of saved ’er. For all we know! But when ’e got there it was over and in my opinion ’e’s got it on ’is conscience for the rest of ’is days. And that’s no error. Dr. Harkness!”

Alleyn asked her to describe, in detail, the state of the room when she first went into it. She remembered nothing but her mistress and when he pressed her to try, he thought she merely drew on what she saw after she returned.

He said, “We’ve almost finished, but there’s one question I must ask you. Do you know of anyone who had cause to wish for her death?”

She thought this over, warily. “There’s plenty,” she said, “that was jealous of her and there’s some that acted treacherous. Some that called themselves friends.”

“In the profession?” Alleyn ventured.

“Ah! Miss Kate Cavendish, who’d never have got further than Brighton Pier in the off-season without the Lady hadn’t looked after ’er! Mr. Albert Smith, pardon the slip, I should of said Saracen. But for her ’e’d of stuck behind ’is counter in the Manchester department. Look what she done for them and how do they pay ’er back? Only this morning!”

“What happened this morning?”

“Sauce and treachery was what happened.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question, does it?”

She stood up. “It’s all the answer you’ll get. You know your own business best, I suppose. But if she’s been murdered, there’s only one that had the chance. Why waste your time?”

“Only one?” Alleyn said. “Do you really think so?”

For the first time she looked frightened, but her answer was unexpected. “I don’t want what I’ve said to go no further,” she said with a look at Fox, who had been quietly taking notes. “I don’t fancy being quoted, particularly in some quarters. There’s some that’d turn very nasty if they knew what I said.”

“Old Ninn?” Alleyn suggested. “For one?”

“Smart,” Florence said with spirit, “aren’t you? All right. Her for one. She’s got her fancy like I had mine. Only mine,” Florence said, and her voice was desolate, “mine’s gone where it won’t come back, and that’s the difference.” A spasm of something that might have been hatred crossed her face and she cried out with violence, “I’ll never forgive her! Never. I’ll be even with her no matter what comes out of it, see if I’m not. Clara Plumtree!”

“But what did she do?”

He thought she was going to jib, but suddenly it all came out. It had happened, she said, after the tragedy. Charles Templeton had been taken to his dressing-room and Ninn had appeared on the landing while Florence was taking him a hot bottle. Florence herself had been too agitated to tell her what had happened in any detail. She had given Mr. Templeton the bottle and left him. He was terribly distressed and wanted to be left alone. She had returned to the landing and seen Dr. Harkness and Timon Gantry come out of the bedroom and speak to Mrs. Plumtree, who had then gone into the dressing-room. Florence herself had been consumed with a single overwhelming desire.

“I wanted to see after her. I wanted to look after my Lady. I knew what she’d have liked me to do for her. The way they’d left her! The way she looked! I wasn’t going to let them see her like that and take her away like that. I knew her better than anybody. She’d have wanted her old Floy to look after her.”

She gave a harsh sob but went on very doggedly. She had gone to the bedroom door and found it locked. This, Alleyn gathered, had roused a kind of fury in her. She had walked up and down the landing in an agony of frustration and had then remembered the communicating door between the bedroom and dressing-room. So she had stolen to the door from the landing into the dressing-room and had opened it very carefully, not wishing to disturb Mr. Templeton. She had found herself face to face with Mrs. Plumtree.

It must, Alleyn thought, have been an extraordinary scene. The two women had quarrelled in whispers. Florence had demanded to be allowed to go through into the bedroom. Mrs. Plumtree had refused. Then Florence had told her what she wanted to do.

“I told her! I told her I was the only one to lay my poor girl out and make her look more like herself. She said I couldn’t. She said she wasn’t to be touched by doctor’s orders. Doctor’s orders! I’d of pulled her away and gone through. I’d got me hands on ’er to do it, but it was too late.”