As he told her, she began to laugh, shaking and rocking herself backwards and forwards till her tea spilled over and she had to set down her cup on the top of the stove.

“Well, I never!” she gasped. “Think I went after that Flaxman and got him with Mr. Humphreys’ pruning-knife? I daresay there’s been women might have had cause to do him in. A bad lot, that’s what he was, and that Nellie Humphreys not much better! But I didn’t take a knife to either of ’em.”

He laughed too.

“I didn’t think you did, Granny.” He allowed a pause to lengthen. “I thought you might have seen something.”

“And if I did?” Her tone had sharpened. There was no laughter in it now.

“Then I hope you will tell me.”

She considered. Her tea must have been cold now as well as bitter, but she finished it before she said,

“Will I have to come into court and swear to what I seen?”

“That depends on what it was.”

“Well then, it wasn’t much. I come along to Mrs. Miller’s with the cough mixture for her Stanley -”

“What time would that be?”

“Half past nine when I slipped out the back door. Listening to the wireless they was, and I went quiet.”

“Did you see anything then?”

She shook her head.

“I went along on, and I got to Millers’ and I give her the mixture.”

“How long were you there?”

She screwed up her face.

“I don’t rightly know. She was talking about Stanley ’s cough and how they couldn’t none of ’em sleep nights for it. And I was telling her about my old great-gran. Better than all your doctors and chemists and National Health she was! Made up stuff for man and beast, and what she couldn’t cure nobody could, and no use trying!”

Grayson could see that this kind of conversation might have lasted quite a long time. He gave up trying to measure it and said,

“It was past ten when you got home.”

“Who says it was?”

“Aggie does.”

She made a grimace.

“Well, I daresay.”

“And now, Granny, you saw something when you were going home. What did you see?”

“ ’Tweren’t nothing to make a song and dance about.”

“What was it?”

“I’d got my shawl over my head and my slippers on my feet. The streets were as dry as a bone. I’d got outside of Millers’, and I’d gone a little way, when I stubbed my toe on a stone, right through the wool of my slippers. It hurt something cruel, and I took and stood still under the big holly right over the way from the Ladies’ House. I didn’t feel like walking on that foot till I’d got it eased off a bit. So there I stood, leaning up against Bessie Turner’s front gate and thinking whether I’d be able to get home alone. No one couldn’t see me on account of that big holly what she won’t never have clipped.”

“Well?”

“Now, Johnny Grayson, don’t you go trying to hustle me! Cruel bad, my toe was, and if I could ha’ stood on one leg I’d ha’ done it.” She screwed up her face reminiscently and then opened a winking eye. “Time was I could! Egg race, hop-skip-and-jump-I’d win ’em all!”

He laughed.

“Some time ago, Granny!”

She nodded vigorously.

“Not but what I can’t do a thing or two when I’ve got to! You’d be surprised!” Her eyes sparkled with malice. “Well, I was just seeing if I could get my foot off of the ground by leaning on Bessie’s gate, when someone come out atween the gate-posts of the Ladies’ House.”

“Who was it?”

She gave an odd cackle of laughter.

“And wouldn’t you like to know that!”

“Yes, I should.”

“Then want must be your master, Johnny, my boy.”

“You couldn’t see?”

She tossed her head.

“Nobody could ha’ seen! There’s the trees hanging over, and a shadow as black as you please. All I could see was there was someone moving out atween the gate-posts and along under the trees.”

“Which way?” said Grayson quickly.

She wagged her head at him.

“Just the way you would like it to be, Johnny-round to the left and along on the road to Tom Humphreys’. And if you want to know what I thought at the time, well, I thought it was that Flaxman going after Nellie.”

He could get no more from her than that. She had taken it to be Flaxman at the time, but she couldn’t swear to any distinguishing mark of man or woman. What she had seen was someone moving in the shadows, and she would swear to that. But it certainly wasn’t Flaxman, because the time would be somewhere round about ten, when, according to Mrs. Larkin, he had had his peppering and was making his painful and interrupted way towards the waste piece of ground where he was to be stabbed. Grayson could have no doubt in his own mind that she had seen the person who had stabbed him, but as to who that person might be his guess was as good as another’s. It went no farther than that.

They were having coffee that evening in the drawing-room of the Ladies’ House, when Ione said,

“I’m going up to town tomorrow, Geoffrey. I may stay a night or two-I’m not sure.”

Allegra put in a fretful,

“How sudden of you! I might have wanted to come too, but I can’t all in a hurry like that.”

“Why, Ally, I told you this morning!”

“Yes, I know, but that wouldn’t have given me time.” She shut her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Her voice faded out.

Ione found herself glancing at Geoffrey. He was frowning. Perhaps the same thought was in both their minds. Why must Allegra have time before she could go to town? To let someone know that she was coming, so that she could get more of the drug which had been destroying her? She said quickly,

“I heard from Louisa Blunt this morning from Paris. She has actually left the flat, so I can take it over at any moment, and I think I had better go up and see to the business side of it. She is the most casual creature in the world, and I shall feel happier when I have taken over the keys. She seems to have left them with a Mrs. Robinson who is the ground floor tenant. I don’t know her, and she doesn’t know me, but I’ve sent her a wire to say I’ll call for them in the morning. I don’t want to find she has gone out.”

Allegra opened her eyes and began to talk very quickly.

“It’s going to cost an absolute fortune if you are really going to have new curtains everywhere. That pale yellow stuff with the feathers on it would be nice for your bedroom. You could lie in the dark and think of them coming down like snow, couldn’t you?”

Jacqueline Delauny said in a vexed voice,

“I didn’t know you were going to be away, Miss Muir, or I wouldn’t have arranged to go out for the day, and now I am afraid it is too late to put it off. My friend has been ill, and it would upset her very much. I do wish I had known!”

Geoffrey showed some impatience.

“There isn’t the slightest need for all this! I suppose I can look after Ally!”

Allegra half opened her eyes and said with a kind of absent sweetness,

“Better than anyone, darling-can’t you?”

“I hope so.” He had a smile for her whether she saw it or not. Then he turned to Jacqueline Delauny.

“You’re taking the Alvis, Jackie? I suppose you’ll be back for dinner?”

“Oh, yes-I’m only so sorry-”

“There’s no need.” Finality in the tone and in the gesture with which he set down his cup and went out of the room.

Jacqueline’s eyes followed him. All the muscles of her face were taut, but the eyes gave her away. It occurred to Ione, and not for the first time, that she was heading for a breakdown. When the door was shut behind Geoffrey Trent she drew a long breath and turned back again. She said with an unusual agitation in her manner,

“I really am vexed, you know. Both of us to be away all day like this-I really wouldn’t have had it happen! I thought everyone knew I was having the day to go and see my friend.”

Allegra looked through her lashes.