I had dealt with matrons in hospital wards in England and in France. Inspector Rother held no terrors for me. But he obviously found this method useful in frightening suspects into blurting out whatever was causing them to feel guilty.
After a moment he set the sheet aside.
“You didn’t tell me that Mrs. Lydia Ellis left the premises early this morning, before most of the family was awake.”
“She did?” I asked, surprised. Where on earth had she gone? Not, I prayed, to the church at Wych Gate.
“She was seen as she bicycled into Hartfield. A shopkeeper was washing his windows and noticed her.”
“Then you must ask her where she was going and why.”
“You didn’t sleep in your own bed last night.”
“No. Mrs. Ellis wasn’t feeling well and she slept in my room. She has a mild concussion, headaches and dizziness.”
“She cried herself to sleep there, according to what I’ve discovered. Why?”
I remembered that someone had already been questioned about a love affair between Lydia and George Hughes. Was he suggesting that she had a broken heart, and that this was a motive for murder?
“I’m not privy to her affairs. Ask her.”
“And you slept in the sitting room. After your assignation with the deceased.”
“There was no meeting,” I told him flatly. “The man came there in search of the brandy decanter.”
“Why look in the sitting room for his brandy? Why not in the drawing room?”
Because the portrait was in the drawing room, I wanted to answer, and didn’t.
“I expect only the deceased can tell you why he chose the sitting room. He was embarrassed to find me in possession of it, and retreated.”
“So you say. I can’t help but wonder if this-encounter-wasn’t the reason Mrs. Lydia Ellis was in tears, and why in the early hours of the morning, she felt it necessary to bicycle into Hartfield, rather than take one of the family motorcars. Noisy things, motorcars.”
“I think,” I said, “if she had been angry with me for speaking to Lieutenant Hughes, she wouldn’t have chosen my room to sleep in.”
“She fell asleep there, perhaps, while waiting for you to come up to your bed. And, of course, you didn’t. She must have found it distressing to face you this morning.”
He had twisted events around to suit himself, using the bits he’d culled from our conversations with him to make his accusations hurtful.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “If she believed I’d taken her place with her lover, I wonder why she felt comfortable returning to London with me?”
A sour expression crossed his face.
“Let us return to her decision to go into Hartfield,” he said after a moment.
“As I knew nothing about it,” I said, “I can’t be of help there.”
“We believe she went to call on a Mr. Merrit, in Bluebell Cottage.” Something in my face must have betrayed me. He smiled. “You know of Mr. Merrit?”
“Actually I do. When I was in Hartfield with Mr. Ellis, he almost stepped out in front of our motorcar. I believe he’s blind.”
“As to that, I’m told he can tell night from day.”
“I wasn’t aware of the extent of his blindness.”
“Why would she call on him, at such an hour on a Saturday morning?”
“You’re asking me to speculate,” I said. “I don’t know.”
He dismissed me then, and all eyes were turned toward me as I returned to the dining room. Everyone was just finishing their soup, and I sat down without a word, smiling at Daisy as she brought my serving from the kitchen and set it before me.
I couldn’t have said, under oath, what kind of soup it was. Parsnip pureed with apples?
Roger Ellis finally demanded, “What did Rother want?”
“He asked me several questions about my earlier statement.”
Lydia looked up from her soup, then looked away again.
“And that was all?”
I said, “I think it was a fishing expedition.”
“Fishing?” Mrs. Ellis repeated, alarm in her voice.
“He was hoping I might contradict myself.”
I could almost feel what they were thinking-that I was an unknown quantity, a guest about whom almost nothing was known. Could they trust me? Or not?
What did I have to hide?
At the same time I was wondering if Inspector Rother wanted me to return to the family dinner table and blurt out all he’d discussed with me. He must have a very low regard for women! Besides, I was trained to keep patient information private, and I wasn’t about to cause troubles in this already troubled family just so Inspector Rother could judge what effect my words had.
We ate in silence after that, and it wasn’t until the savory had been brought in that Roger said, “You’re a nurse. Surely you can tell us how George died.”
“I didn’t examine him,” I replied. “I touched his hand, and I knew then that he was beyond my help. That was all I did. It was necessary for Dr. Tilton to pronounce him dead.” I hadn’t seen the blood matting his dark hair, where he’d been struck from behind. The back of his head had been turned away from me, and I’d tried not to muddle any evidence by moving the body.
“Who is the Simon Brandon who came here this afternoon to call on you?”
“A family friend,” I explained once more. “He served in my father’s regiment. He brought the formal dresses I needed for this weekend and has come back to take me to Somerset when I’m free to leave.”
“Yes, and that’s as it should be,” Gran put in. “A young woman oughtn’t to be traveling about the countryside alone. In my day, it simply wasn’t done.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lydia flush with annoyance, knowing full well that the elder Mrs. Ellis was speaking to her.
We left the dining room and went our separate ways. No one seemed to be in the mood for company. I went up to my room to fetch my coat, and on the way down the stairs again, I encountered Inspector Rother. He gave me a cool nod in passing.
I ran Lydia to earth, finally, in the room above the hall.
It was very much like Aladdin’s cave, mostly furnished with silk cushions scattered about the floor on a beautiful old Turkey carpet. Low tables stood here and there. I wondered if the original furnishings had been burned in Matthew Ellis’s angry rampage in denial of his daughter’s death.
Lydia had half started to her feet when I knocked and then opened the door. “Oh,” she said and settled back amongst the cushions.
“You didn’t tell me that you’d been to Hartfield early this morning.”
A guilty flush rose in her cheeks. “How did you know? Did you see me leave? Have you told the police?”
“It was the police who told me. Apparently someone in Hartfield noticed you bicycling in at that ungodly hour. The police are going to ask you about it. And they’ll ask the rest of the family, I’m afraid.”
“Busybody,” she said tartly. “I’m sure it was Dr. Tilton. All right, yes, I went to see Davis. I told him what George had said. I wanted to know what he thought. He’s a man, he ought to know how men think.”
“And?”
“It was his opinion that there must be a child. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been preying on poor George’s mind to the point that he finally spoke, there in the drawing room. And looking back, I’m convinced that Roger was avoiding him. Except when he had to go with George to remove that nonexistent tree. At that point George was probably too mortified to bring up France.”
“This wasn’t a very good idea,” I told her. “If you’d needed advice, there was Henry.”
“Yes, well, Henry is married to Margaret. There’s no one Davis is likely to tell, is there? I nearly got away with
