Miss Silver turned from it, her face grave.

“I am afraid that there must be something wrong. I think, Eily, that you had better fetch Mr. Castell.”

Eily looked scared.

“Should I just take a look through the keyhole?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“The key will be in the lock-”

But Eily was already stooping down.

“But it isn’t,” she said. “I can see right over the bed… Oh, Miss Silver, she isn’t there-it’s not been slept in!”

“Can you see any sign of Mrs. Duke?”

“Oh, no, I can’t! There’s the bed turned down-like I left it-”

Miss Silver said in a quiet voice,

“Go and fetch your uncle.”

As they stood waiting, Geoffrey Taverner came along the opposite passage from his room and crossed the landing to join them.

“Is anything wrong, Miss Silver?”

“I am afraid that there may be. I think you had better take your sister away.”

But Mildred refused to go-or at any rate no farther than Miss Silver’s room, where she sat trembling on the edge of the bed and shed weak, forlorn tears. They dripped upon the Venetian beads, and so down into her lap as she listened whilst Castell enquired of all and sundry why heaven should be thus afflicting him.

“My respectable house!” he groaned. “Mrs. Duke-are you there? If you are asleep, will you wake up and speak to us! We are getting alarmed. I shall have to break in the door if you do not answer.” He raised his voice to a bellow-“Mrs. Duke!” then turned away with a gesture of despair. “It is no good. She may be ill-she may have taken too much of a sleeping draught-she does not hear-we shall have to break the door-”

Jeremy and Jane had arrived to swell the crowd. Jacob Taverner came across the landing wrapped in his greatcoat. Freddy Thorpe-Ennington, fully dressed but with his fair hair wildly unbrushed, stared from the threshold of his room. Jeremy said,

“Wait a bit-don’t any of these other keys fit?”

“Fool!” said Castell, smiting himself upon the breast. “Idiot- imbecile! Why did I not think of that? I tell you I am out of my senses with all this trouble! The key of the cupboard at the end of the passage, perhaps that will fit-I do not know. It fits one of these rooms, but I have forgotten which. It may be this one, or it may be one of the others-I do not know any more. I have no memory left-the brain gives way-I am distracted!”

In this state of distraction he precipitated himself along the passage, wrenched the key from a cupboard door, rushed back with it, and forced it violently into the lock. It grated, creaked, and under the utmost pressure turned.

Castell jerked at the handle and threw the door wide open. Every inch of the rather dingy room was visible. One side of the curtains had been pulled back. The daylight which entered was not bright, but it was sufficient. It showed the bed as Eily had described it, stripped of its coverlet and turned down for the night. It showed the space beneath it quite empty. It showed a worn square of carpet on the floor, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and two chairs. It showed a hanging-cupboard with the door fallen open. Inside it hung the bright blue coat and skirt and the sheepskin coat in which Florence Duke had arrived. But of Florence Duke herself there was no sign whatever. Except for its ordinary furniture the room was empty.

It was the police who had found her getting on for an hour later. She had gone over the cliff at its highest point, about a hundred yards beyond the hotel. She had fallen upon the rocks, and must have been killed immediately. The body had not been in the water, since this heaped and tumbled mass of rocks was covered only at the highest tides. She was wearing what she had worn the night before, the brightly flowered dress of artificial silk, the silk stockings, and indoor shoes. One of the shoes had come off and had been caught up on a small straggling bush about half way down.

A little later in Castell’s office Inspector Crisp was giving it as his opinion that it was a plain case of suicide, and that in the circumstances it was as good as a confession to the murder of Luke White.

“Clears the whole thing up, if you ask me. Can’t see any reason for putting the other inquest off myself, but the Chief Constable seems to think it would be better.”

Frank Abbott nodded.

“Yes-I think so.”

“Well, I can’t see it myself. But there, I’m not the Chief Constable-as I expect you were going to say.” He laughed quite good-humouredly.

Miss Silver, who had so far contributed nothing to the conversation, now gave a slight dry cough. Frank Abbott turned his head as if expecting her to speak, but she did not do so. For the moment her eyes were upon her knitting. The blue dress approached completion. He turned back to Crisp.

“You are satisfied that it was suicide?”

Crisp made a gesture.

“What else? She killed Luke White-jealousy over that girl Eily-and when I rang her up and told her she would have to identify the body she got the wind up. Wouldn’t face it-went and chucked herself over the cliff. “ He gazed complacently at the London man who couldn’t see a simple solution when he’d got it right under his nose. “Psychology,” he said-“that’s what you’ve got to bear in mind, especially when you’re dealing with women. This Florence Duke-you’ve got to put yourself in her place, look at it from her point of view. She was jealous of Eily Fogarty. This Luke White, he’d got the name for being able to get round any woman, and by all accounts he got round a good few of them. He got round Florence Duke, married her, and left her. Then she comes here and finds him making love to this girl Eily. On her own admission she went down to meet him the night he was murdered, and she was found practically standing over the body with his blood on her hands. Well, a woman will stab a man she’s been fond of if she’s jealous enough. But this is where psychology comes in. She’s done the murder when she was all worked up, but when she’s told she’s got to come in cold blood and look at the corpse she just can’t face it-she goes and chucks herself over the cliff. That’s psychology.”

Miss Silver laid her knitting down in her lap and coughed again.

“That would be one explanation, Inspector, but it is not the only one.”

Crisp looked hard at her.

“Look here, Miss Silver, you were the last person to see Florence Duke or to have any conversation with her. Was she, or was she not, in a state of nervous depression?”

“I have already told you that she was.”

“She was nervous and depressed because she knew she had got to see her husband’s body and give evidence at the inquest?”

“She was frightened and nervous about the identification. I would remind you, Inspector, that I had particularly desired she should not be told until this morning that she would have to identify the body.”

Crisp frowned.

“I thought it best to let her know. Now, Miss Silver-are you prepared to state that there was nothing in Mrs. Duke’s conversation or behaviour to support the idea of suicide?”

Miss Silver looked at him in a candid manner and said,

“No.”

“Then I think I have a right to ask you what she did say.”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“She spoke of her married life. It was obviously very much on her mind. She spoke of there being things which she could not forget. When I warned her that she might be in danger and begged her to let Captain Taverner take her to a place of safety for the night-”

He interrupted forcibly.

“You did that?”

She inclined her head.

“I am thankful to be able to recall that I did. She would not listen to me. She said she did not care. She went so far as to say, ‘If someone was to bring me a good glass of poison this minute, I’d drink it.’ ”