There remained Frederick, the seventeen-year-old footman. Inquiry had elicited that he had not been roused by the happenings of the previous night. After the discovery of the murder Mr. Haile had rung for Marsham. There was, apparently, a bell on the landing in the servants’ wing. The Marshams had come down, but Frederick had slept on, and no one had thought to wake him. Yet, watching him at lunch, Miss Silver considered that it was he rather than Marsham who looked as if he had not slept. He was a fair-skinned boy of the type to which pallor is not natural. He was extremely pale. His hand shook when he offered her Brussels sprouts, and somewhere in the background he dropped a plate. At seventeen the nerves are not armoured against murder, but inextricably coupled with its shock there is in the young a flavour of excitement, an underlying sense of being in the midst of things. One’s photograph in the papers- Frederick Baines! This flavour Miss Silver found to be entirely absent. No two natures are the same, and she did not allow herself to give its absence any particular importance. She merely kept it in her mind along with many other details observed and put away for due consideration. She went down to dinner in a meditative mood.

Dinner had not proceeded very far before she had decided the question of Mrs. Marsham’s temperament. Imperturbable was the only possible word for it. No person suffering from shock or from a shaken nerve could have produced such a flawless meal. Whatever might be happening in the rest of the house, it was obvious that the kitchen remained unshaken. For the rest, everything proceeded very much as it had done at lunch. Mr. Haile played the pleasant host, Lady Dryden the formal guest. Adrian Grey appeared rather dreamy and abstracted, busy with thoughts of his own and emerging from them with reluctance when directly addressed. Ray Fortescue had her own thoughts too. The dark eyes shone, the wide mobile lips were not very far from a smile. A much less acute observer than Miss Silver could have guessed that she was happy. In this house and at this time it was an arresting circumstances and a pleasant one. Beside her, Miss Whitaker had the shadowed look of someone who is not really there. When anyone spoke to her she had to come back from a long way off. She took a spoonful from each dish and left it on her plate.

When they rose from the table Miss Silver inquired whether she might telephone, and was directed, as Ray had been, to the Blue Room, Frederick preceding her to turn on the light. She thanked him, and when the door was shut, looked up the number of the Boar and asked for Detective Inspector Abbott. His rather blasé ‘Hullo?’ became a friendly greeting as soon as he heard her voice.

‘What can I do for you? I suppose it isn’t a case of “Fly, all is discovered!” is it? The parts of detective and murderer doubled by Inspector Black. Edgar Wallace used to be rather fond of that trick.’

‘My dear Frank!’

‘One must relax occasionally. Waring and I have just dined at separate tables, trying unsuccessfully not to catch each other’s eye. The food, however, is good. Marvellous for a village pub, but I believe they do a roaring trade with sightseers in summer. There’s Vineyards, and a Roman villa, and several very hot-stuff gardens in the neighbourhood, I’m told. Anyhow they have their own hens, and whoever does the cooking knows how to make an omelette. I can’t imagine why it should be so difficult. The French are not nearly so good as we are at things like governments and elections and paying their income tax, but they do have us beat to a frazzle over omelettes. I must ask the landlord if his wife is French. There was also some real cheese- not the awful oily stuff which comes done up in impenetrable shiny paper, and which I suspect of being one of the more subtle products of whale oil. But there-as you were about to remark, idle badinage should be kept within limits. Did you have something you wanted to say?’

A discreet cough came to him along the line. It proved to be a preliminary to Miss Silver going over to the French language, which she spoke after the honourable tradition of the Prioress in the Canterbury Tales. If not actually the French of Stratford-atte-Bow it was in the true line of descent.

‘You will remember the magnifying-glass which you showed me.’

‘Certainly.’

‘Did you know that there were initials on it?’

‘I did not.’

‘I discovered them by accident. I was replacing the glass upon the writing-table, when the light caught what I at first believed to be a scratch just inside the rim. On further examination I discovered that there were two initials.’

‘Are you going to tell me what they were?’

For his side of the conversation Frank considered that he might reasonably adhere to his native tongue. Miss Silver’s French delighted him, his own did not. If he could not do a thing to perfection he would rather not do it at all. Except for an occasional quotation, he therefore preferred to leave French alone. ‘Wind in the head-that’s what you’ve got, Frank my boy,’ as his respected superior, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb, was wont to say.

In the Blue Room Miss Silver gave a gentle cough. She said in English, ‘I think I had better do so,’ and then reverted to French. ‘The first is the last letter of the alphabet. The second is R. I felt that you should know without delay.’

Frank Abbott gave a long soft whistle.

‘Oh, it is, is it? Well, we shall just have to find out whose godparents searched the Scriptures for a name. It sounds as if one of the minor prophets might be involved.’

‘My dear Frank!’

She heard him laugh.

‘I had to learn the whole list of them at school. It finished up with a most suggestive jingle.’

She said, ‘That is all. I will now join the others. Shall I see you in the morning?’

‘Undoubtedly.’

Returning to the drawing-room. Miss Silver seated herself at a little distance from the fire. The chair which she had chosen stood at a companionable angle to that from which Adrian Grey had risen at her approach. He put down the paper which he had been reading and said,

‘Let me get you a cup of coffee.’

Thanking him graciously, she awaited his return. From where she sat she could observe the little group about the hearth. Lady Dryden had finished her coffee. She had a book in her hand, and occasionally she turned a page, but Miss Silver received the impression that she was not really reading. She had, perhaps, produced as much social small talk as she felt necessary.

Eric Haile stood with his back to the fire with a cigarette between his fingers. Every now and then he put it to his lips and let out a faint cloud of smoke. Every now and then he addressed a smiling remark to Ray Fortescue in the sofa corner. When he did this she would look up from the magazine whose leaves she was turning and make some brief reply. Then she went back again, not to the magazine, but to her own private dream.

Miss Whitaker was not in the room.

Adrian Grey came back with the coffee-cup in his hand.

‘I noticed you took half milk after lunch, and one lump of sugar. I hope that is all right.’

So he did notice things, in spite of that air of being somewhere vaguely in another world. She gave him the smile which had won the hearts of so many of her clients and said,

‘How kind. Pray sit down, Mr. Grey. I should be so glad to have a little talk with you.’

As he took the chair beside her he had the feeling that it was a comfortable and familiar place. If he had been in some private world it suffered no intrusion, neither was he being asked to leave it. He had encountered a friendly presence. There was a sense of security.

She sipped her coffee in a thoughtful manner and said,

‘I think you can help me if you will. You must have known Sir Herbert very well. Will you tell me about him?’