‘Thank you.’

She laid them down on the hall table.

‘Come into the sitting-room, won’t you? At least-if you go in this door and give me just a moment. I think something’s boiling over.’

She beat a speedy retreat to the kitchen. Inspector Hardcastle took a last deliberate look at the letters on the hall table. One was addressed to Mrs Lawton and the two others to Miss R. S. Webb. He went into the room indicated. It was a small room, rather untidy, shabbily furnished but here and there it displayed some bright spot of colour or some unusual object. An attractive, probably expensive piece of Venetian glass of moulded colours and an abstract shape, two brightly coloured velvet cushions and an earthenware platter of foreign shells. Either the aunt or the niece, he thought, had an original streak in her make-up.

Mrs Lawton returned, slightly more breathless than before.

‘I think that’ll be all right now,’ she said, rather uncertainly.

The inspector apologized again.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve called at an inconvenient time,’ he said, ‘but I happened to be in this neighbourhood and I wanted to check over a few further points about this affair in which your niece was so unfortunately concerned. I hope she’s none the worse for her experience? It must have been a great shock to any girl.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mrs Lawton. ‘Sheila came back in a terrible state. But she was all right by this morning and she’s gone back to work again.’

‘Oh, yes, I know that,’ said the inspector. ‘But I was told she was out doing work for a client somewhere and I didn’t want to interrupt anything of that kind so I thought it would be better if I came round here and talked to her in her own home. But she’s not back yet, is that it?’ 

‘She’ll probably be rather late this evening,’ said Mrs Lawton. ‘She’s working for a Professor Purdy and from what Sheila says, he’s a man with no idea of time at all. Always says “this won’t take more than another ten minutes so I think we might as well get it finished,” and then of course it takes nearer to three-quarters of an hour. He’s a very nice man and most apologetic. Once or twice he’s urged her to stay and have dinner and seemed quite concerned because he’s kept her so much longer than he realized. Still, it is rather annoying sometimes. Is there something I can tell you, Inspector? In case Sheila is delayed a long time.’

‘Well, not really,’ said the inspector smiling. ‘Of course, we only took down the bare details the other day and I’m not sure really whether I’ve even got those right.’ He made a show of consulting his note-book once more. ‘Let me see. Miss Sheila Webb-is that her full name or has she another Christian name? We have to have these things very exact, you know, for the records at the inquest.’

‘The inquest is the day after tomorrow, isn’t it? She got a notice to attend.’

‘Yes, but she needn’t let that worry her,’ said Hardcastle. ‘She’ll just have to tell her story of how she found the body.’

‘You don’t know who the man was yet?’

‘No. I’m afraid it’s early days for that. There was a card in his pocket and we thought at first he was some kind of insurance agent. But it seems more likely now that it was a card he’d been given by someone. Perhaps he was contemplating insurance himself.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Mrs Lawton looked vaguely interested.

‘Now I’ll just get these names right,’ said the inspector. ‘I think I’ve got it down as Miss Sheila Webb or Miss Sheila R. Webb. I just couldn’t remember what the other name was. Was it Rosalie?’

‘Rosemary,’ said Mrs Lawton, ‘she was christened Rosemary Sheila but Sheila always thought Rosemary was rather fanciful so she’s never called anything but Sheila.’

‘I see.’ There was nothing in Hardcastle’s tone to show that he was pleased that one of his hunches had come out right. He noted another point. The name Rosemary occasioned no distress in Mrs Lawton. To her Rosemary was simply a Christian name that her niece did not use.

‘I’ve got it straight now all right,’ said the inspector smiling. ‘I gather that your niece came from London and has been working for the Cavendish Bureau for the last ten months or so. You don’t know the exact date, I suppose?’

‘Well, really, I couldn’t say now. It was last November some time. I think more towards the end of November.’ 

‘Quite so. It doesn’t really matter. She was not living with you here previously to taking the job at the Cavendish Bureau?’

‘No. She was living in London before that.’

‘Have you got her address in London?’

‘Well, I’ve got it somewhere,’ Mrs Lawton looked round her with the vague expression of the habitually untidy. ‘I’ve got such a short memory,’ she said. ‘Something like Allington Grove, I think it was-out Fulham way. She shared a flat with two other girls. Terribly expensive rooms are in London for girls.’

‘Do you remember the name of the firm she worked at there?’

‘Oh, yes. Hopgood and Trent. They were estate agents in the Fulham Road.’

‘Thank you. Well all that seems very clear. Miss Webb is an orphan, I understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Lawton. She moved uneasily. Her eyes strayed to the door. ‘Do you mind if I just go into the kitchen again?’

‘Of course.’

He opened the door for her. She went out. He wondered if he had been right or wrong in thinking that his last question had in some way perturbed Mrs Lawton. Her replies had come quite readily and easily up to then. He thought about it until Mrs Lawton returned.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, apologetically, ‘but you know what it is-cooking things. Everything’s quite all right now. Was there anything else you want to ask me? I’ve remembered, by the way, it wasn’t Allington Grove. It was Carrington Grove and the number was 17.’

‘Thank you,’ said the inspector. ‘I think I was asking you whether Miss Webb was an orphan.’

‘Yes, she’s an orphan. Her parents are dead.’

‘Long ago?’

‘They died when she was a child.’

There was something like defiance just perceptible in her tone.

‘Was she your sister’s child or your brother’s?’

‘My sister’s.’

‘Ah, yes. And what was Mr Webb’s profession?’

Mrs Lawton paused a moment before answering. She was biting her lips. Then she said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I mean I don’t remember, it’s so long ago.’

Hardcastle waited, knowing that she would speak again. She did.

‘May I ask what all this has got to do with it-I mean what does it matter who her father and mother were and what her father did and where he came from or anything like that?’

‘I suppose it doesn’t matter really, Mrs Lawton, not from your point of view, that is. But you see, the circumstances are rather unusual.’ 

‘What do you mean-the circumstances are unusual?’

‘Well, we have reason to believe that Miss Webb went to that house yesterday because she had been specially asked for at the Cavendish Bureau by name. It looks therefore as though someone had deliberately arranged for her to be there. Someone perhaps-’ he hesitated ‘-with a grudge against her.’

‘I can’t imagine that anyone could have a grudge against Sheila. She’s a very sweet girl. A nice friendly girl.’

‘Yes,’ said Hardcastle mildly. ‘That’s what I should have thought myself.’

‘And I don’t like to hear anybody suggesting the contrary,’ said Mrs Lawton belligerently.

‘Exactly.’ Hardcastle continued to smile appeasingly. ‘But you must realize, Mrs Lawton, that it looks as though your niece has been deliberately made a victim. She was being, as they say on the films, put on the spot.Somebody was arranging for her to go into a house where there was a dead man, and that dead man had died very recently. It seems on the face of it a malicious thing to do.’

‘You mean-you mean someone was trying to make it appear that Sheila killed him? Oh, no, I can’t believe it.’