“Tell me, my dear. You said you saw someone go round the corner of the house, and you thought it was me, and you were going to open one of the windows in the lounge and tell me to go home. Did you open that window?”

“Oh, no, John.” The shudder took her. “He was there in the hall-he was dead.”

He held her warm and close.

“You didn’t go into the lounge?”

She said, “Oh!” and then, “Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I told the Inspector it was because there had been drinks there, and I thought about getting something for Luke. I don’t know if it was true-I don’t really. I just said it, but I don’t know whether I thought about it or not. I couldn’t tell him about seeing you go round the corner of the house and wanting to tell you to go home-I couldn’t tell him that.”

“You should have told him the truth, my dear.”

She had begun to cry, tears flooding up into the dark blue eyes and brimming over.

“You can’t tell what you don’t know. I was too frightened to know why I did it. I did think about the drinks, but I did think about you being there and wanting to get to you. And then it came over me that you’d done it, and I was too frightened to go on. So I went back, and seeing him-like that, dead-” She clung to him, sobbing.

“There, there, my dear, don’t you take on. You’re coming back with me now like I said, and Mrs. Bridling will look after you till we’re married, and then I’ll look after you myself.”

She pulled away from him at that, rubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her overall.

“Oh, John, I can’t!”

“Eily-”

She shook her head.

“But we’re ever so short-handed. I can’t-not with all these people in the house. Miss Heron’s helping me.” She smiled suddenly and dabbed her eyes again. “She says to call her Jane, because we’re going to be cousins-if I marry you.”

He said indulgently, “Aren’t you going to marry me, Eily?”

Her smile came, and went, and came again.

“Not with all this going on in the house. There’s no need for me to go away now that I can see. I’ll be all right. It was Luke I was afraid of, but he’s dead.”

Her movement as she pulled away from him had left him facing the door and the screen which partly covered it. As he stood he could see the panelling above the door. He should have been able to see an inch or two of the door itself. But there was nothing there- Only two fingers of emptiness. The door was open, and a draught blowing in from the hall. Just when it had opened, or who had opened it, there was nothing to show. Eily and he had been too far away to know or care.

He left her and ran out into the hall. Mildred Taverner was on the stairs.

She was on the fifth or sixth step up. She had both hands on the balustrade and stood there pressed up against it looking down into the hall. It was impossible to say whether she had been going up or coming down. When she saw John Higgins she poked with her long neck and said in a discontented voice,

“It’s quite terribly cold, isn’t it? I’ve been in my room, but it is so very chilly there. Do you suppose there is a fire in the lounge?”

He wondered whether it was she who had opened the door to see if there was a fire in the dining-room. He said gravely,

“Yes, there is a fire in the lounge. Did you think there would be one in the dining-room? Was it you who opened the door just now?”

She was immediately very much flustered. The three separate chains which she wore, one of rather large gold links, one of sky-blue Venetian beads, and one of some kind of brown berry strung upon scarlet thread, all jiggled and clanked. The berries became entangled with each other and mixed up with a very large silver brooch which was rather like a starfish. She came down the stairs, plucking nervously to disentangle them.

“Oh, no. I’ve been up in my room. I didn’t really feel-I mean it’s so very awkward, isn’t it? Such a dreadful thing to have happened-and no knowing who did it. So if you are with anyone, you can’t help thinking ‘Suppose it was him’-or her, or them, as the case might be. So I went up to my room, but when you are alone you can’t help having the feeling that there might be someone under the bed or in the wardrobe, even if you’ve looked there before-or perhaps creeping along the passage with their shoes off.” She shivered, and the chains all clanked again. “So I thought perhaps the lounge. Do you know if there is anyone there?”

He opened the door for her. There was certainly a fire, and a comfortable chair drawn up to it. But Mrs. Bridling, who had been sitting there, had got tired of waiting and gone home. There was Mr. Bridling to see to, and the Sunday dinner to cook.

There was only one person in the room, and that was Freddy Thorpe-Ennington. He was standing by a window immediately opposite the door with his hands in his pockets looking out. He turned round as Mildred Taverner came in, stared at her as if he had never seen her before, and went back to looking out of the window.

John Higgins shut the door upon this ill-assorted couple. Eily had come out of the dining-room. She stood there, troubled and uncertain. He took her by the arm, and along through the baize door by the other way into Castell’s study.

Inspector Crisp was on his feet, and Miss Silver was putting away her knitting. Frank Abbott, who had been making a note, looked up, pencil in hand. They all looked up.

John Higgins said in a firm, cheerful voice,

“Now, Eily, you’ll tell the Inspector what you’ve just been telling me.”

He felt her whole body jerk with the start she gave. He got a glance of passionate reproach. She began to tremble and to trip over her words.

“It wasn’t anything-it wasn’t anything at all. I told the Inspector-”

Miss Silver gave her little cough.

“It seems, perhaps, that there is something you did not tell. There very often is. Sometimes it is quite important. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just tell us what it is that you have remembered.”

As Eily stood there catching her breath, John Higgins said,

“She’s upset-she’s had enough to make her. It’s just this, Inspector, and it may be important. Eily came down last night because she thought I was whistling for her.”

Crisp said, “What!” very abruptly. Frank Abbott stopped in the act of putting the notebook into his breast pocket.

John nodded.

“She went along to Miss Heron’s room like I told her. They went to sleep. Then Eily woke up. Reason she woke was, someone was going past under the window whistling Greenland’s Icy Mountains. That’s the tune I always whistle when I come over to have a word with her. So she went along to her room and opened the window, thinking it was me, and all she saw was someone going round the corner of the house. The lounge is that side, so she ran down to call to me out of the window there. But when she got into the hall, there was Luke White dead. Tell them, Eily, what you did.”

She was pinching his arm-angry enough to pinch as hard as she could, and frightened enough to want to hold on to him. She found some odds and ends of a voice.

“That’s true, Inspector. I thought it was John-or I’d never have come down.”

“You came into the lounge and opened the window?”

“No-no-I didn’t. I was going to, but I didn’t. He was dead, and it came over me. I thought about the window, but I didn’t get there. And I thought about the drinks like I told you, but they’d been put away. And I came back into the hall and I saw the knife. And I couldn’t go on-I came over giddy, and I sat down on the stair.”

Miss Silver slipped the handle of her knitting-bag over her arm. It was of flowered chintz, a very pretty pattern, the gift of her niece Ethel, not new but very well preserved. They had all remained standing.