“I wish,” he said, after a minute or two, “that you would tell me your own opinion about this business.”

“About my father-in-law’s death? I thought at first that he died as a result of his dinner and his temperament.”

“And what did you think when these letters arrived?”

“I didn’t know what to think. I don’t now. And I must say that with everybody so excited and foolish about it one can’t think very clearly.”

“About the book that turned up in the cheese-dish…” he began.

Millamant jerked her head in the direction of the glass case. “It’s over there. Someone replaced it.”

He walked over to the case and raised the lid. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take charge of it presently. You saw her reading it?”

“Looking at it. It was one evening before dinner. Some weeks ago, I think.”

“Can you describe her position and behaviour? Was she alone?”

“Yes. I came in and she was standing as you are now, with the lid open. She seemed to be turning over the leaves of the book as it lay there. When she saw me she let the lid fall. I was afraid it might have smashed, but it hadn’t.”

Alleyn moved away to the cold hearth, his hands in his pockets. “I wonder,” said Milly, “if you’d mind putting a match to the fire. We light it at four-thirty, always.”

Glad of the fire, for the crimson and white room was piercingly cold, and faintly amused by her air of domesticity, he did as she asked. She moved, with her embroidery, to a chair before the hearth. Alleyn and Fox sat one on each side of her.

“Mrs. Ancred,” Alleyn said, “do you think any one in the house knew about this second Will?”

“She knew. She says he showed it to her that night.”

“Apart from Miss Orrincourt?”

“They were all afraid he might do something of the sort. He was always changing his Will. But I don’t think any of them knew he’d done it.”

“I wondered if Sir Cedric—”

The impression that with Millamant all would be plain speaking was immediately dispelled. Her short hands closed on her work like traps. She said harshly: “My son knew nothing about it. Nothing.”

“I thought that as Sir Henry’s successor—”

“If he had known he would have told me. He knew nothing. It was a great shock to both of us. My son,” Millamant added, looking straight before her, “tells me everything — everything.”

“Splendid,” murmured Alleyn after a pause. Her truculent silence appeared to demand comment. “It’s only that I should like to know whether this second Will was made that night when Sir Henry went to his room. Mr. Rattisbon, of course, can tell us.”

“I suppose so,” said Millamant, selecting a strand of mustard-coloured silk.

“Who discovered the writing on Sir Henry’s looking-glass?”

“I did. I’d gone in to see that his room was properly done. He was very particular and the maids are old and forget things. I saw it at once. Before I could wipe it away he came in. I don’t think,” she said meditatively, “that I’d ever before seen him so angry. For a moment he actually thought I’d done it, and then, of course, he realized it was Panty.”

“It was not Panty,” Alleyn said.

He and Fox had once agreed that if, after twenty years of experience, an investigating officer has learned to recognize any one manifestation, it is that of genuine astonishment. He recognized it now in Millamant Ancred.

“What are you suggesting?” she said at last. “Do you mean—?”

“Sir Cedric has told me he was involved in one of the other practical jokes that were played on Sir Henry, and knew about all of them. He’s responsible for this one.”

She took up her embroidery again. “He’s trying to shield somebody,” she said. “Panty, I suppose.”

“I think not.”

“It was very naughty of him,” she said in her dull voice. “If he played one of these jokes, and I don’t believe he did, it was naughty. But I can’t see — I may be very stupid, but I can’t see why you, Mr. Alleyn, should concern yourself with any of these rather foolish tricks.”

“Believe me, we shouldn’t do so if we thought they were irrelevant.”

“No doubt,” she said, and after a pause, “you’ve been influenced by your wife. She would have it that Panty was all innocence.”

“I’m influenced,” Alleyn said, “by what Sir Cedric and Miss Orrincourt have told me.”

She turned to look at him, moving her torso stiffly. For the first time her alarm, if she felt alarm, coloured her voice. “Cedric? And that woman? Why do you speak of them together like that?”

“It appears that they planned the practical jokes together.”

“I don’t believe it. She’s told you that. I can see it now,” said Millamant on a rising note. “I’ve been a fool.”

“What can you see, Mrs. Ancred?”

“She planned it all. Of course she did. She knew Panty was his favourite. She planned it, and when he’d altered the Will she killed him. She’s trying to drag my boy down with her. I’ve watched her. She’s a diabolical, scheming woman, and she’s trying to entrap my boy. He’s generous and unsuspecting and kind. He’s been too kind. He’s at her mercy,” Millamant cried sharply and twisted her hands together.

Confronted by this violence and with the memory of Cedric fresh in his mind, Alleyn was hard put to it to answer her. Before he could frame a sentence she had recovered something of her composure. “That settles it,” she said woodenly. “I’ve kept out of all this, as far as one can keep out of their perpetual scenes and idiotic chattering. I’ve thought all along that they were probably right but I left it to them. I’ve even felt sorry for her. Now I hope she suffers. If I can tell you anything that will help you, I’ll do so. Gladly.”

“Oh, damn!” thought Alleyn. “Oh, Freud! Oh, hell!” And he said: “There may still be no case, you know. Have you any theory as to the writer of the anonymous letters?”

“Certainly,” she said with unexpected alacrity.

“You have?”

“They’re written on the paper those children use for their work. She asked me some time ago to re-order it for them when I was in the village. I recognized it at once. Caroline Able wrote the letters.”

And while Alleyn was still digesting this, she added: “Or Thomas. They’re very thick. He spent half his time in the school wing.”

i

There was something firmly coarse about Milly Ancred. After performances by Pauline, Desdemona and Cedric, this quality was inescapable. It was incorporate in her solid body, her short hands, the dullness of her voice and her choice of phrase. Alleyn wondered if the late Henry Irving Ancred, surfeited with ancestry, fine feeling and sensibility, had chosen his wife for her lack of these qualities — for her normality. Yet was Milly, with her adoration of an impossible son, normal?

“But there is no norm,” he thought, “in human behaviour; who should know this better than Fox and I!”

He began to ask her routine questions, the set of questions that crop up in every case and of which the investigating officer grows tired. The history of the hot drink was traced again with no amendments, but with clear evidence that Milly had resented her dethronement in favour of Miss Orrincourt. He went on to the medicine. It was a fresh bottle. Dr. Withers had suggested an alteration and had left the prescription at the chemist. Miss Orrincourt had picked it up at Mr. Juniper’s on the day she collected the children’s medicine, and Milly herself had sent Isabel with it to Sir Henry’s room. He was only to use it in the event of a severe attack, and until that night had not done so.

“She wouldn’t put it in that,” said Milly. “She wouldn’t be sure of his taking a dose. He hated taking medicine and only used it when he was really very bad. It doesn’t seem to have been much good, anyway. I’ve no faith in Dr. Withers.”