already laid out for the day.” He stared at Pitt. “When I came back upstairs I was rather later than I expected. I couldn’t find the tray. Someone must have moved it. Happens in a big house full of guests. It was long after the time Mr. Greville would have spent in the bath. I knocked on the bathroom door and there was no answer, and when he wasn’t in his room, I assumed …” He colored faintly. “I assumed he had gone to Mrs. Greville’s room, sir.”
“Not unnatural,” Pitt said with the shadow of a smile. “No one would expect you to pursue it. What time would that have been?”
“About ten minutes to eleven, sir.”
“Who else did you see on the landing or corridor?”
Wheeler thought very hard. Pitt could see his desire to be able to blame someone, but racking his memory did not help him, and he could not bring himself to lie.
“I saw that little maid of Mrs. Pitt’s going along towards the stairs up to the servants’ bedrooms,” he said at last. “And I saw that young valet of Mr. McGinley’s, Hennessey. He was Standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms along that way.”
He pointed. “I think it was Mr. Moynihan’s room.”
“No one else?”
“Yes, Mr. Doyle said good-night and went to his room. That’s all.”
“Thank you.” Pitt went to look for Jack. He must deliver Cornwallis’s message. Jack would have been busy trying to salvage the goodwill of the conference, and Emily would be coping with the domestic catastrophe of death—the house and the bereavement of one of her guests.
He saw Gracie in the hall, looking pale and wide-eyed. There was fear in the stiff, rather proud angle of her head. Just beyond her he saw the slender figure of McGinley’s valet. Pitt smiled at Gracie, and she forced herself to smile back, as if everything were all right and she knew he could solve it all in the end.
He passed the open dining room door and glanced in. Charlotte was there, standing still as Iona paced back and forth speaking quietly in great urgency.
Charlotte looked at Pitt and very slightly shook her head, then turned back to Iona, taking a step towards her.
Pitt found Jack in his study with a pile of papers. He had barely closed the door when it opened again and Emily came in. She looked flustered, her color was high and her usually beautiful hair was hastily dressed, as if she could not sit still for the maid. From her expression it was obvious Jack had told her that Greville’s death was murder. She was torn between sympathy and fury.
Jack waited for Pitt to speak. “Cornwallis asked me to conduct the investigation,” Pitt began, looking at Jack. “Will you telephone him in about fifteen minutes? He will have spoken to the Home Office by then. We have to keep everybody here ….”
Emily let out a little groan and went over to stand beside Jack.
“I’m sorry,” Pitt apologized. “I know it will be appalling, but I can’t let them go. Unless there was a break-in, and Tellman is looking at that now, then someone already here was responsible.”
“Even if there was a break-in, it could still involve someone here,” Jack said grimly. He put his hand up to Emily’s arm and gripped her. “We have no alternative, my dear, except to do everything we can to discover the truth as quickly as possible. At least Mrs. Greville has her brother and son here to care for her. It could have been worse. And Charlotte will help you with the others.” He turned to Pitt. “I suppose there is no further danger, is there?”
Emily stiffened till she was almost rigid.
Pitt hesitated. There was nothing they could guard against. Frightening them would serve no purpose.
“Certainly not for the moment. And we’ll do all we can to solve it as quickly as possible.”
Emily looked at him with disbelief. “Where can you even start?”
“Well, we know he was killed between twenty-five past ten and twenty to eleven, because of his valet’s evidence—”
“And you believe it?” Jack cut in.
“The man’s been with him nineteen years. But I will have Tellman check. It will be easy enough to know what time the water was taken up for the bath. And he couldn’t stay in it longer than a quarter of an hour before sending for more hot.”
“Why kill him in the bath?” Jack said, pulling a rueful face. “It seems to add indignity to death, poor devil.”
“Best place to be sure of finding him alone.” Emily had gathered her wits from her distress and begun to think. “And pretty defenseless. Anywhere else and he could have a valet with him, or someone catching a moment to put some point to him, or be with Eudora. It is the one place a person is alone, and with the door unlocked so more water could be brought. It makes sense, when you consider it. It wasn’t a break-in, was it, Thomas?” She said it with certainty. “It was someone here who chose their time very well.”
“Do you know where you were?” Pitt asked
“In my own bath,” Jack said with a shiver.
“So you don’t know where anyone else was?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Emily?”
“In my bedroom, with the door closed. After that awful day …” She smiled tightly, possibly thinking of the day before, then the present. “I was tired. I’m sorry, I can’t help either.”
Jack looked up at Pitt.
