There was a slight pause, then:
“Poor Ossy,” said William. William Murton was a strange admixture of physical characteristics. He was heavier than the Cremonds but he, too, had the Cremond nose. With it, though, he had a flamboyance of manner missing in the others. “Somebody put him there, I take it?”
“Quite so,” said the Earl.
“When?”
“Nobody seems to have seen him since Friday.”
“I came down on Friday,” said William, “seeing as you probably don’t like to ask.”
“When on Friday?” said Laura Cremond harshly.
William turned towards her with an expressionless face. “In the afternoon, Laura. When did you come down?”
She flushed. “Thursday.”
“We came down for the match,” mumbled Miles.
“Match?” said William Murton, looking round at everybody. “Match?”
“You know,” said Miles eagerly. “Ornum versus Petering.”
“Tiddledywinks?”
“Cricket.”
Laura Cremond said, “He’s teasing you, Miles.”
“Cricket,” said William, slapping his thigh. “Of course. That reminds me—I had some money on that.”
Miles stared at him. “Money on a cricket match?”
“That’s right, old boy.”
“But people never…”
“Gents don’t,” said William. “People do. Who won?”
“We did.”
“Good. Thought you would. Old Lambert owes me a fiver then.”
“Ebeneezer Lambert never backed a winner in his life,” observed the Earl sadly. “Same in my father’s day. Poor judge of horses.”
“And men,” said William.
“Men?”
“He was a friend of my father’s, you know.”
“Quite so,” said the Earl.
“You could have almost called them colleagues,” went on William bitterly, “seeing how Lambert was a saddler and my father was a groom.”
“Quite so,” said the Earl again.
“Only colleague isn’t quite the right word when it comes to following a trade, is it?”
“Craft,” said the Earl mildly. “You worry too much about the past, William. It’s all over now.”
“Me worry about the past? I like that! You’ve all got a full-time man here doing nothing much else except poke about into family history. And if that isn’t worrying about the past I don’t know what is.”
“Only we haven’t got him any more,” said Lord Henry diffidently, “have we?”
William turned towards his cousin. “No more you have. Met with a nasty accident, did he?”
“So it would seem,” said Henry. “The police are down in the armoury now. Then they want to see us all.”
“It’s a pity,” observed William to no one in particular, “that it should happen just when Ossy was getting on so well, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Or was I misinformed?”
“No.”
“There are those,” added Murton meaningfully, “who might say that meddling with the past is downright dangerous, aren’t there?”
“There are,” agreed Lord Henry, “and who’s to say they aren’t right?”
Alone of the rest of the family Miss Gertrude Cremond was not in the sitting-room. She was still presiding over the room devoted to the display of fine china.
Detective Inspector Sloan found her there by the simple process of following the route that the public took through the House. It was, he decided, rather like playing one of those games based on the maze principle. Each time he came to a dead end—in this case either a locked door or a thick, looped cord—he went back two paces and cast about in another direction.
Eventually he came to the china. It looked very beautiful in the long light of an early summer evening—which was more than could have been said for Miss Gertrude Cremond. She was shorter and squarer than the Earl, but still unmistakably a Cremond.
She had the nose.
She could not remember when she had last seen Osborne Meredith alive.
“He wasn’t really interested in the china, Inspector. Not as an expert, I mean.”
“I see, miss, thank you.” Some unmarried ladies Sloan called “miss,” some he called “madam.” There was a fine distinction between the two, which he wouldn’t have cared to have put into words and had nothing to do with age.
“But if I can help you at all in any other way…” said Miss Cremond.
“You deal with the china yourself, do you?”
“All of it,” she agreed. “And the flowers. Lady Eleanor helps me with the flowers when she is at home. As a rule we do those on Tuesdays and Fridays. We have fresh flowers in all the public rooms when the House is Open.”
“Fridays you’ll be busy,” he said.
“Always.”
“This last Friday, can you remember what you did in the afternoon?”
“The Great Hall chandelier,” responded Miss Cremond promptly. “It took a long time—in fact I came back after tea to finish it off. You must have it hung back if the public are to be admitted. It would soon get broken if not.”
“Quite so, miss. And afterwards?”
She frowned. “It took me until it was time to change. Dillow hung it after dinner.”
“I see, miss, thank you.” He paused. “If you should remember noticing anything at all unusual about Friday evening I should be glad to be told.”
“Of course, Inspector.”
Sloan began to go. “Lady Alice tells me that she saw Judge Cremond on Friday evening.”
Subconsciously he had expected a light laugh and an apology for an eccentric old lady. What he got was:
“Oh, dear.” And a worried look came over Miss Gertrude Cremond’s plain face. “That’s a bad sign, I must say.”
“Well, Sloan?”
Sloan was back on the telephone to Berebury Police Headquarters.
“Dr. Dabbe has had a look at the body now, sir.”
Superintendent Leeyes grunted. “Well?”
“Depressed fracture, base of skull.”
“Not suicide then.”
“No, sir. Not accident either. Not unless someone popped the lid—I mean, the helmet—back on again afterwards, stood him in the right place, and dusted the floor all round.”
“Murder then.”
“I’m afraid so. Hit,” said Sloan pithily, “very hard on the back of the head with an instrument which may or may not have been blunt.”
