'Ran?'
'Yeah. When the doc went by about seven forty-five, the thing was O.K. Just where it ought to be. Josephine heard that. . . sound down there. By the time we got there, about nine fifteen, it had been moved.'
'Sound,' said Alice. 'Kind of a cough? I wonder . . .'
'Yeah, so do I.'
'Because I heard something, Fred.'
'You did? I asked you and you said you didn't.'
'What?'
'Right after the lamp fell. I asked you if you heard anything.'
'But it wasn't then. It was later. After we got back here and had put Innes to bed. You were gone on that errand for the doctor. I was just coming downstairs to get the bag.'
'That's funny. When I heard it was right after the lamp fell. It wasn't exactly a cough, though.'
'No,' Alice said, 'it was a chuckle but not really a chuckle.'
'A noise . . . like in the throat.''
'Yes. That's it.'
'Damn funny.'
'Josephine says it was a cough?'
'That's what she said.'
'It must have been a funny cough,' said Alice, 'if she ran.' The house creaked. She knew that if she heard that little sound again now, she'd scream in spite of herself.
'Be that as it may,' Fred went on, 'how come the lamp fell? Answer me that. It's been standing there on that table for years. Tonight it falls off. Falls off and over the railing and nearly beans Brother Innes.'
'Did you see anyone?'
'Nobody. I ran up here, remember? Well, I knocked on Maud's door. She's down at the end of the hall you're on. Other side of the stairs. Nobody answered. Naturally. She can't hear knocks. So I Ihought Fd better not open the door because she might be in there in her underwear or something and I dunno if I could stand it'—Alice bit her lip—'so I came around here and knocked on Isabel's door. No answer. So I opened that one. There was nobody in there.'
'Then it couldn't have been Isabel.'
'Sure it could, ' said Fred. 'Why not? Doesn't prove anything. Not with these stairs so handy.'
Alice was drawn into wondering. 'Had they come upstairs? Yes, Isabel pushed Maud up when the doctor came. But it couldn't have been Gertrude.'
'Why not? She could have sneaked around and up these stairs if she wanted to. Or go up the front, for that matter.'
'But... I was there in the hall nearly the whole time.'
'Not the whole time. You were in the sitting room with limes and the doctor and his mother. Mrs. Innes, I mean.'
'Yes, that's right. She could have been listening. The curtains were drawn across the parlor. Who drew those curtains, Fred?'
'She did, I guess.'
'We don't know where they were.' Alice shrugged. 'They might have been running up and down stairs, all three of them. But anyhow, it wasn't Susan and ii wasn't the doctor.'
'Why should it be Susan?'
'I don't know.'
'She's all right,' said Fred. 'Innes don't like her much. He's ashamed of her. And she don't get mad at him for it and that makes him more ashamed than ever. Of himself' I mean.' '
Alice looked at him curiously. 'Is that if?' 'Sure.'
Alice said. 'You're quite a psychologist'
'Nuts,' Fred said.
'Well, then, how are we doing? If anyone tipped over the lamp on purpose, it was one of the sisters or . . . Josephine?
'No, it wasn't either Josephine. She was out then She got back nght after it fell. She told me. You saw her didn't you?' '
'Yes, I saw her, but if you believe what everybody says...'
'That's where we are,' said Fred with sudden grimness. If somebody s trying to murder the boss, we don't want to beheve what people say.'
'Fred, we aren't talking about murder. Not really.'
'No? Well, say we're kidding. Anyhow, we know it wasn't you and it wasn't me.'
