At ten o’clock they went upstairs together. Their rooms were next to each other along the right-hand passage, Miss Silver nearest the stairs, then Florence Duke, and beyond her Mildred Taverner.

Florence went straight into her room, but Mildred lingered, her door half open, the knob in her hand, as if she could not make up her mind to go in.

“Perhaps this is our last night here. Oh, I do hope so-don’t you?” And then, “You are so very kind-I wonder if you would just stand at the door whilst I look in the cupboard and under the bed. I always do it at home-not that I think there will be anyone, but it just gives me a more comfortable feeling. And my friend comes with me, because of course if there should be anyone there, or-or anything, I don’t really know what I should do.” She drew a long breath. “There was a very large spider once, and I have never been any good about spiders.” Her head poked and her long nose twitched.

Miss Silver came briskly to the door and opened it wide.

“I do not suppose for a moment that there will be any spiders,” she said with her slight dry cough.

There was neither a spider nor a cockroach, there was not even a concealed miscreant. With a sigh of relief Mildred Taverner said good-night all over again and locked the door on the inside.

Miss Silver went into her own room, where she took off her watch, which she wound, and her bog-oak brooch. She then stood for a few moments in thought, and had just begun to cross the room in the direction of the door, when there was a light tap upon it. In response to her “Come in!” Eily appeared, carrying four hot-water bottles.

Miss Silver was so used to her own that she took it from Eily without having any thoughts about it at all, but she felt that she could at once allocate the other three to their respective owners. Very fine white rubber in a white satin bag with pale green quilting could not possibly belong to anyone but Lady Marian. Bright blue with no cover at all would, she thought, be Jane Heron’s. But the last one? There were two more ladies and only one bottle, a rather battered specimen with a washed-out flannel cover. It might belong either to Florence Duke, or to Mildred Taverner. It took her only a moment to decide. Florence Duke might have owned one as shabby, but both it and its cover would have started life in some gayer shade. With hardly any perceptible pause she was asking Eily,

“Does Mrs. Duke not have a bottle?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Silver. But I saw her go over to the bathroom, so I thought I’d slip it in and get rid of it. It’s a red one. Fortunately they’re all different. Sometimes it’s a job not to get them mixed- and that’s a thing a nobody likes.”

“No-I suppose not.”

Miss Silver had placed her own bottle inside the turned-down bed. She now went over to the door and closed it.

Eily watched, three bottles in her arms and a look of surprise on her face. She was to be still more surprised. Miss Silver coughed and said,

“Where are you sleeping, Eily?”

“In my own room.”

“I think it would be better if you were to sleep with Miss Heron tonight.”

The dark blue eyes were fixed on her in a look between wonder and fear.

“But, Miss Silver-”

“I think it would be best. I advise you very strongly to ask Miss Heron to let you share her room.”

Eily shook her head.

“My uncle wouldn’t like it.”

“I do not see why he should know.”

There was an odd fleeting look before the lashes fell.

“There isn’t much my uncle doesn’t get to know.” Then, more quickly, “And what’s the need? It was Luke I was afraid of-and he’s gone.”

“Eily-”

She shook her head again.

“My uncle wouldn’t like it at all. If you please, Miss Silver-the bottles will be getting cold.”

Miss Silver moved away from the door. She was satisfied upon one point, but seriously uneasy upon another. She saw Eily go out of the room, and waited with her door ajar for Florence Duke to return from the bathroom.

As soon as she heard what she was listening for she looked out into the passage.

“Mrs. Duke-if I might have just a word with you-”

Florence came across with a slow, unwilling step. She had taken off her dress and was wearing her outdoor coat in place of a dressing-gown. Her face, stripped bare of make-up, had a sagged, unhappy look, the lines from nose to mouth accentuated, the colour in cheeks and lips dull and lifeless. She said heavily,

“I just want to get into bed and sleep.”

Miss Silver shut the door.

“I will not keep you. There are one or two things I could not say downstairs, where there was a risk that we might be overheard. Inspector Crisp rang you up this evening, did he not?”

“What if he did?”

“He asked you to give evidence at the inquest tomorrow?”

Florence said heavily,

“What if he did?”

“Mrs. Duke, is there no one in this house who might be concerned to prevent you from giving that evidence?”

“Why should they?”

“Do you not know of a reason?”

She stared down at the bath-towel she was carrying. It hung on her right arm, but she had slipped her left hand under it too. It hid both her hands. She stared at it with hidden eyes. A moment passed before she said,

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you not?”

The eyes were lifted. They were angry now.

“Let me alone, can’t you! What has it got to do with you?”

Miss Silver said very quietly and steadily,

“I am concerned for your safety, Mrs. Duke. Will you please listen to me for a moment?”

The anger flickered and died down.

“What do you want?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You have been asked to give certain evidence. I do not know what that evidence will be, but I can think of circumstances in which it might prove dangerous to people who have already shown that they will stick at nothing. I would like you to consider whether you might not be in danger, and whether it would not be safer for you to spend the night elsewhere.”

Florence Duke looked past her.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

As if she had not spoken, Miss Silver continued.

“I would like to ask Captain Taverner to take you to Cliff House, where Inspector Abbott is staying. He would, I am sure, arrange for you to be accommodated.”

Florence Duke gave a sudden laugh as far removed from merriment as it well could be.

“Cliff House? Me-at this time of the night? I suppose you think I haven’t got a character to lose-going to stay with two young men, and one of them in the police! No, thank you!”

“Mrs. Duke-”

Florence put a hand on her shoulder.

“Look here, you mean well, I grant you that, but this isn’t your business. And I don’t know what you’re talking about neither, and if I did I wouldn’t care. Get that-I wouldn’t care! If someone was to bring me a good glass of poison this minute, I’d just as soon drink it and be done with everything! So you can stop your hinting about my being in danger! I don’t care if I am! Do you get that? I don’t give a damn!”

Miss Silver looked at her with compassion. There was a moment when their eyes met, a moment when things hung in the balance. The hand on Miss Silver’s shoulder weighed heavily. It shook a little, and then it was withdrawn. Florence Duke said with a catch in her voice,

“Oh, well, it’ll be all the same a hundred years hence.”

Then she turned and went out of the room and into her own, and shut the door.