The sooner Superintendent Leeyes sent him that dictionary the better. Then he could find out if archives were the same thing as muniments.
“Always knew it was dangerous to meddle in papers,” went on the old lady. “Told m’brother so.”
That disposed of the world of scholarship.
“He should have sacked Meredith when he got past cricket.”
And sport.
“Always wanted to die in the saddle myself,” said the old lady.
Sloan took a second look at Lady Alice. The days of cavalry charges were over, he knew, but in any case surely women had never…
“A good way to go,” she said.
Light dawned. Sloan said, “The hunting field…”
“That’s right. Now, my man, tell me, who killed him?”
The lorgnette was back again, hovering above the Cremond nose.
“I don’t know, Lady Alice.”
“He didn’t break his neck, did he?”
“No.”
“Seen a lot of men go that way. Takin’ fences.”
Lady Alice had obviously taken her own fences well. At the gallop probably.
Full tilt.
Which brought him back to Osborne Meredith.
Full circle.
“What can you tell me about Friday?” he asked.
Lady Alice might be older, but she was less vague than Millicent, her nephew’s wife. “On Fridays Maude and I prepare for Saturday and Sunday.”
“Saturday and Sunday?”
“We do not leave our rooms until the evening on Saturdays and Sundays and Wednesdays.”
Sloan blinked. He had heard that Mohammedans observed certain rules of behaviour between sun-up and sun-down—but not elderly English spinsters of the Christian persuasion.
“All the year round?” he said tentatively.
With the Mohammedans he understood it was during Ramadan.
“April to October,” said Lady Alice.
“And Bank Holidays,” said her sister.
“Except Good Fridays,” added Lady Alice.
“I see,” said Sloan, who was beginning to…
“My nephew is, of course, Head of the Family now, but…”
“But what?” prompted Sloan.
“But neither my sister nor I approve of the House being Open. What our late brother would have thought we do not like to contemplate.”
“Quite,” murmured Sloan diplomatically. “So when the House is… er… Open, you both remain in your apartments?”
“Always.”
It was a pity, that, he thought. Lady Alice and Lady Maude were good value at half a crown.
“Now, about Friday…”
“Yes?”
“Did you see Mr. Meredith at all?”
“No.”
“What did you do after tea?”
“What we always do after tea—play ombre.”
“Ombre?” One thing was absolutely certain about ombre, whatever it was. You didn’t play it for money any more. Inspector Sloan had been a policeman long enough to know all the games you could play for money.
The old lady nodded. “A game our mother taught us.”
That took you right back to the nineteenth century for a start. It was the twentieth that Sloan was concerned about.
“Who won?” he asked casually. That was as good a memory test as anything.
He was wrong there.
“Maude,” said Lady Alice promptly. “She always wins on Fridays.” She waved a thin hand. “It’s so much easier that way.”
“I see.”
“I win on Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays.”
“Friday afternoon,” he said desperately. “Did you see anyone about on Friday afternoon?”
Lady Alice shook her head. “Just the Judge. And that was much later. As I was going along to dress for dinner.”
“The Judge?” Sloan sat up. He really would have to watch his step if there were judges about
“Judge Cremond,” said Lady Alice.
Sloan sighed. Surely there couldn’t be more Cremonds still? Purvis hadn’t mentioned him in his list of those in the house.
He said, “He’s a member of the family, too, I take it?”
“Oh yes.” The old lady laughed. “He’s a member of the family all right.”
“I shall have to interview him in due course, then. I’ll make a note of the…”
The old lady’s laugh was a cackle now, and not without malice. “I doubt if you’ll be able to do that, Mr. Sloan, whoever you are. You wouldn’t even see him.”
“No?”
“He’s been dead these two hundred and fifty years.”
“A ghost?” Sloan sighed. There would have to be a ghost, he supposed, in a house like this, but Superintendent Leeyes wouldn’t like it all the same.
The lorgnette described an arc in the air on its way towards the Cremond nose. “That’s right. Mark my words, young man, someone’s going to die soon.”
Lady Maude chimed in like a Greek chorus of doom. “The Judge always gets uneasy when someone in the family is going to die.”
The Reverend Walter Ames, Vicar of Ornum and Perpetual Curate of Maple-juxta-Handling, was not a preacher of long sermons at any time.
On this particular evening in June he took as his text “unto him that hath shall be given” (a point on which in any case he could seldom think of much to say), said it with celerity, and hurried across from the Church to Ornum House.
He reached the armoury just as Inspector Sloan got back there.
“I’ve just heard the sad news,” said the Vicar somewhat breathlessly. “Terrible. Quite terrible.”
“Yes, sir.” Inspector Sloan took a quick look round the armoury. Dr. Dabbe was engaged in contemplating the armour rather as an inexperienced diner pauses before he makes his first foray into a lobster. Detective
Constable Crosby was still prowling round the walls looking at the weaponry.
“I thought something was odd,” went on the Vicar, who was grey-haired and patently unused to hurrying.
“You did, sir? Why was that?” asked Sloan.
“I blame myself now for not doing more at the time, though I don’t see what more…”
“For not doing what?” asked Sloan patiently.
Mr. Ames took a deep breath. “It’s like this, Inspector. Meredith sent me a message asking me to come to see him…”
“When would that have been, sir?”
“Friday afternoon. He rang my wife—I was out at the time—and told her that he’d made an important
