She said, “No!”-not because she didn’t believe him, but because she did. It was the last hopeless protest against something too dreadful to be accepted.

His next words cut across the numb surface of her mind like a knife.

“Why did you do it?”

“Carr!”

He left the door and came forward. She saw then that he had the raincoat bundled up on his arm. It was the first moment that she had thought about it since she had dropped it across a chair in the study at Melling House. She thought of it now, and remembered that she had left it there.

Carr thrust it at her.

“What sort of a fool do you think you are to leave it there with his blood on it?”

Rietta lifted her head. It was like a nightmare-nothing made sense. But the numbness was going.

“It’s my own blood. I scratched my wrist going up through the wood.” She turned it for him to see-a scarlet line like a hair, already healing.

Carr gave an angry laugh.

“Don’t be a fool, Rietta-not with me! We’ve got to think.”

“I scratched myself-”

He shook out the coat, held up the right sleeve, and heard her gasp. The cuff was drenched and soaked. The red, wet stain ran up almost to the elbow, the breadth below it was splashed and streaked.

“You scratched your wrist-Oh, my God, talk sense!”

There was a moment when the room shook under her feet and the red stains spread in a milky mist. Then she had hold of herself again and her sight cleared.

“Carr, look at me!”

He was looking.

“And listen! I don’t know anything about this. After you went out I was afraid of what you might do. You’d had a shock. I-well, I was afraid. I took the first coat I touched and ran up the back way to Melling House. When I got there the room was hot-I dropped the coat on a chair and never thought of it again. I talked to James-in the end we quarrelled. No, it wasn’t exactly a quarrel. He said something I resented very much, and I walked out. I never thought about the coat.”

He was holding up the sleeve.

“That’s his blood.”

She said, “I did scratch my wrist-it bled. He lent me his handkerchief-I must have dropped that too.”

“What’s the good of telling me all this came from a scratch on your wrist?”

“I don’t tell you that-it didn’t. But I did catch my wrist on something in the wood. It bled quite a lot for such a little scratch.” A shudder went over her. “Not like that!” She paused for a moment, drawing hard upon her self-control. Then she came up to him. “Carr, put that dreadful thing down and tell me what’s happened. We’re talking in the dark. And for God’s sake tell me the truth, because nothing else is going to be the slightest bit of use.”

He let the coat fall down in a heap on the floor. It lay there with a broken look. But Rietta had no eyes for it. They were fixed on Carr’s hard, dark face. He said,

“Very well, I’ll tell you. When I went out of here I didn’t know what I was doing. I walked myself pretty well off my legs, because if I hadn’t I was going to go up to Melling House and smash James Lessiter. I must have walked for an hour, and I fetched up at Jonathan Moore’s. Elizabeth was there by herself. I stayed there until I’d got hold of myself. We-” his face changed-“she’s taken me back. When I came away I didn’t want to kill him any more-I just wanted to be quit of the whole thing. That’s the truth, Rietta. When I got to the Gate House Catherine’s light was on. I thought, then it wasn’t so late-Lessiter would be up-I could get quit of it all and start fresh. I wasn’t going to touch him. I was going to let him know that I knew, and I was going to tell him what I thought of him. Stupid of me, I expect, but that’s how I saw it. I went up to the house, and the front was all dark. I thought if he was up he’d be in the study, so I went round to the glass door, and found it ajar.”

Rietta took her breath quickly.

“I can’t remember-I can’t remember whether I shut it. I don’t suppose I did-I was too angry-”

He gave a sort of half laugh.

“Angry! I shouldn’t say too much about that!”

“It was about Catherine-it doesn’t matter. Carr, go on.”

“I opened the door and went in. The curtains were drawn behind it. The overhead light was on. He was lying slumped forward over the table with his head smashed in.”

“Carr!”

He nodded.

“It wasn’t pretty. It looked as if he had been sitting in his chair and had been hit from behind. The poker was lying on the hearthrug. There wasn’t any doubt about what he’d been hit with.”

She said, “Horrible!”

“Not nice to look at. Probably instantaneous. You’re not expecting me to be sorry for him, are you? If we’re not careful we may have to be uncommon sorry for ourselves.”

“Go on.”

“I had that cheering thought in the first five seconds. When I saw the raincoat it got a lot stronger. It was turned over, so a bit of the lining showed, and I thought I’d seen the stripe before. I went and had a look and found my initials on the neckband. After that I wiped the handle of the poker with a bloodstained handkerchief which seemed to have dropped on the hearth.”

She shuddered.

“He lent it to me for my wrist. You shouldn’t have wiped the handle.”

He stared at her accusingly.

“Why shouldn’t I have wiped it? If my raincoat was there, someone brought it, didn’t they? It wasn’t I. And that left you.”

“Carr!”

“It’s no use saying ‘Carr!’ If you’d had a row and hit him, it would be a hundred to one you’d rush off and never think about fingerprints. But if it was someone else, and someone clever enough to make use of my raincoat, then it was a hundred to one he’d have dealt with the handle of the poker already-anyhow that’s what I thought at the time. I wiped the handle, and I put the handkerchief on the fire, which was practically choked with ash. I don’t know if it’ll burn or not-it doesn’t really matter. Then I wiped the edge of the door with my own handkerchief, got the raincoat, and came away.”

She took another of those quick breaths.

“You ought to have rung up the police.”

He said, “I may be a fool, but I’m not a damned fool.” Then he picked up the raincoat. “We’ve got to get the blood off this. What’s the best way?”

“Cold water… Carr, I don’t like it. We ought to send for the police-we haven’t done anything wrong.”

He touched her for the first time, taking her shoulder in a bruising grip.

“You’ve got a good headpiece-use it! On the evidence, do you think you could find a dozen people who would believe I didn’t do it?”

“You?”

“Or you.”

A dazed feeling came over her. She put up her hand to her head.

“A dozen people-”

He turned at the door.

“There are twelve people on a jury, Rietta.”

Mr. Stokes started his milk round at seven in the morning. He reached Melling House at twenty past, and found what he afterwards described as a very horrid state of things. The back door stood open. Nothing unusual about that. All in the day’s work that he should take the milk through to the kitchen and say “I don’t mind if I do” when Mrs. Mayhew offered him a cup of tea. But this morning there wasn’t any tea-only Mrs. Mayhew sitting up straight in a kitchen chair with her hands gripping the seat on either side. Looked as if she was afraid she’d fall off if she was to let go. She sat up straight, and looked at Mr. Stokes, but he wouldn’t like to say she saw him-face all white like wet curds, and her eyes set in her head. Mr. Stokes didn’t know when he’d had such a turn.

“Why, Mrs. Mayhew-what’s up?” he said, and didn’t get a word or anything except that stare. He put down the milk on the dresser and looked round for Mayhew, because for certain sure there was something wrong, and he couldn’t go away and leave her like that.