“It would interest me extremely.”

Down in the kitchen Eily was putting away the glass and silver. She wasn’t being as quick as usual, because every now and then a very bitter salt tear escaped from between her fine dark lashes and ran down slowly over a white cheek. Sometimes the drop splashed upon spoon or glass, and she had to polish it again. Annie Castell was busy over the range. All her movements were slow and dragging. It was a wonder how she ever got done. There was no word spoken between them until at the end of it she turned round and said in her toneless voice,

“What’s the good of your standing there crying? It never helped anyone that I heard tell.”

Eily said, “There’s no help at all-”

Annie Castell took the lid off a saucepan with porridge in it, gave it a good stir round, and covered it again. Then she said,

“It’s that Luke?”

Eily said, quick and choked, “If he touches me, I’ll die.” She snatched a breath, “Or I’ll kill him.”

Annie Castell made a clicking sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, but she didn’t say anything for a piece after that. She heard Eily fetching her breath quick, but she didn’t say anything. In the end she put a question,

“Has he touched you?”

Eily began to cry like a lost thing.

“He came up into the room where I was. I was turning down Miss Heron’s bed. And I said to go away, but he wouldn’t. And I said I’d tell, and he dared me. He said”-she fought for her breath and got it hard-“he said if I went to anyone else, he’d come in the night and cut his heart out.”

Annie Castell was clearing the kitchen table. When she had everything off it she took an old clean cloth out of the drawer and spread it. She took knives and forks and laid them neat and orderly, and set glasses. Then she said,

“Men talk a deal of nonsense.” And, after a pause, “I’d lock my door nights.”

“Do you think I don’t?”

Annie nodded. She said,

“Mrs. Bridling left her scarf. Fetch it through from the scullery and put it handy on the dresser and come and have your supper. No knowing when Luke and Fogarty’ll be down. You have your supper and get off to bed.”

Eily said nothing. She went to the scullery, and she came back again empty-handed.

“It isn’t there.”

A slow frown came between Annie Castell’s eyes.

“It’s there, at the end of the drip-board. I let it out of my hand when I was bringing it through.”

“It’s not there.”

Annie Castell said, “She must have come back for it. Sit down and have your supper.”

Miss Silver looked about her at the room which Captain Taverner was so kindly relinquishing.

“Very comfortable,” she said-“and most good of you. Mrs. Duke next door, and then Miss Mildred Taverner, you say? And Lady Marian and her husband opposite?”

Jeremy said, “Not quite. It’s Jane who is just over the way from you, and the Enningtons beyond her. The bathroom’s on Jane’s other side.”

“So very convenient. You are really too kind. These old houses are sometimes so confusing. There are some more bedrooms, are there not, across the landing?”

Jeremy wondered why elderly ladies took so much interest in other people’s affairs. He said,

“Yes. Mr. Taverner’s over there, and Geoffrey, and I suppose the Castells, and that girl Eily.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“And Mr. Miller?”

Jeremy was packing his bag. Jane was sitting on the end of the bed. She wrinkled her nose and said,

“Thank goodness, no! He’s gone.”

Jeremy turned round with a shaving-brush in his hand.

“How do you know?”

“Eily told me. He was-well, you saw what he was-and just to keep him quiet, that wretched Castell wanted Eily to come and see him, and she wouldn’t. She had already had a scene with Luke White, and Al was the last straw. She ran out of the room in the end, and a little while after Fogarty told her he’d gone home.”

Miss Silver put her head on one side like a bird and repeated the last word in an interrogative manner.

“Home?”

“Ledlington. He’s a porter at the station-I told you. He’s got a room in some back street.”

Jeremy reached for his pyjamas and pushed them down on the top of his shaving tackle.

“Long odds against his making it. Drunk and incapable in a ditch would be the form, I should think. As a matter of fact I saw him go, and if he doesn’t sober up, I shouldn’t think he’d get half a mile. He was still singing ‘Eileen alannah.’ ”

Jane said, “It’s nonsense Eily staying here. She ought to marry John Higgins and get out of it.” She turned to Miss Silver. “He’s another of the cousins, but he won’t come here. Perhaps he’s afraid of not being able to turn the other cheek to Luke White. He’s a sort of local preacher when he isn’t being Sir John Layburn’s head carpenter. Eily and he are in love, and he’d make her an awfully good husband. Quite a nice change after Luke and Al.”

Jeremy picked up his case.

“I’ve plumped for the room half way down the stairs.” He took Jane by the wrist and pulled her up. “If you’re good, you can come and help me unpack. Good-night, Miss Silver.”

They went down the short flight to the room where they had talked before dinner. A bed had been made up on the deep old-fashioned couch. It really looked very comfortable.

Jeremy shut the door, and said with frowning intensity,

“Why on earth are you spreading yourself like that?”

“Why on earth was I spreading myself like what?”

“Like you were to Miss Silver.”

“I wasn’t!”

He said contemptuously,

“Of course you were! I want to know why.”

Jane softened. She had been looking rather haughtily at a point just above his head. She now allowed her eyes to meet his for a moment, then looked down and said in a tentative manner,

“Jeremy-”

“Well?”

“There’s something-and I don’t know whether to tell you-” She paused, and added thoughtfully, “or not.”

Jeremy threw his bag on to the couch. He turned back to say,

“Look here, what’s all this?”

“Well, perhaps it’s nothing-”

“All right, if it’s nothing, you’d better go to bed.”

“No-I’ll tell you. It’s only-you know I met Miss Silver at Mrs. Moray’s, and I thought just what anyone would think, that she was a sort of Edwardian specimen governess and really ought to be under a glass case in the British Museum or somewhere, but rather a lamb, and we’d been getting on like a house on fire.”

“Darling, is all this going to get us anywhere? Or shall I just go quietly off to sleep until you arrive at the point?”

“I have arrived at it. That’s what she seemed like, and that’s what I thought she was. But she isn’t. At least she is really. That’s why it’s so convincing. I mean, she used to be a governess and all that sort of thing, so it’s the most marvellous protective colouring-like insects pretending to be sticks-”

“Jane, you’re raving!”

“No, darling, I’m only leading up to it gently.”

“Leading up to what?”

She gave a little gurgle of laughter, put her lips quite close to his ear, and said,

“She’s a detective.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No-really. Mrs. Moray said she was marvellous. Charles said so too-they both did. They said the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard thought no end of her.”

“You’re not spoofing?”

She said indignantly, “As if I would!”

“You might. Then-”

They looked at each other. Jane nodded.

“I know-that’s what I’ve been thinking-about her being here. It might be accidental like she said, or it mightn’t. She might be detecting.”

Jeremy said in an exasperated tone,

“I told you there was something fishy about this place. You oughtn’t to have come.”

“The theme song!” She blew him a kiss. “So I thought if there is any dirty work going on, she might just as well know which of us is which and have some sort of an idea of the lay-out. Because-well, I didn’t tell you about Luke White, did I?”