‘No, I missed that. Are he and Maud going to remain on at Lexham?’

‘Not if I know it!’

‘I have an idea Maud doesn’t want to,’ she remarked. ‘What do you make of her, Stephen?’

‘You can’t make anything of a vacuum. Yes, what is it?’

This last sentence was addressed to Sturry, who had entered the room, and was waiting by the door, with a look of patient resignation on his face.

‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought you would wish to be informed that the Inspector from Scotland Yard is here again.’

‘Does he want me?’

‘As to that, sir, I could not take it upon myself to say.’

‘Well, all right! you can go,’ Stephen said irritably.

Sturry bowed. ‘Very good, sir. And perhaps I should mention that I have reason to believe that the Inspector Abstracted one of the foreign daggers from this room, and took it away with him before lunch.’

Having delivered himself of this piece of news, he waited to see what the effect of it would be. On the whole, it was disappointing, for although Stephen glanced quickly up at the wall above the fireplace, he made no remark. Mathilda too said nothing, but she did give a faint shudder. Sturry was obliged to be satisfied with this. He withdrew to his own domain, there to regale the more favoured amongst his colleagues with a highly coloured and wholly fictitious account of Mr Stephen’s reactions to his disclosure.

For a minute or two after he had left the room, neither Stephen nor Mathilda spoke. Stephen seemed to be intent only on the game. He finished his break, rather sooner than Mathilda had expected, for he was a good player, leaving her an easy shot.

‘Curious that it should be so beastly to know the actual weapon,’ she said lightly. ‘I suppose we ought to have suspected those daggers.’

He made no reply. She saw that the lowering look had descended on his brow again, and found herself once more wishing that she could fathom the workings of his queer, secluded mind. She said abruptly: ‘Who picked up your cigarette-case?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘I know Valerie had it, but no one could suspect her of having gone into Nat’s room, much less of having stabbed him. And the more I think of it the more incredible it seems that anyone else should have taken the thing upstairs.’

‘Uncle Nat himself,’ he suggested.

‘I don’t believe it. Why should he?’

‘To give it back to me, presumably.’

‘He wasn’t in that kind of a mood when I last saw him,’ Mathilda replied. ‘Besides, if Valerie really left it on the table by her chair, it would have been perfectly safe there. I’ll tell you what, Stephen: there’s some mystery attached to that case, and for the life of me I can’t solve it.’

He seemed disinclined to discuss the matter, merely giving a kind of grunt, and turning away to mark up her score on the board. A horrid little doubt seized her: what did she know of him, after all? It might be proved that he was in financial difficulties; he might have taken Nat’s threats seriously; he might cherish large desires, which he kept hidden in his own guarded heart, and which only a fortune could put within his reach. There was a streak of cruelty in him, of hard ruthlessness, which was betrayed in his treatment of Joseph, and of Valerie. He didn’t care how much he hurt people: he had suffered hurt himself, and that was reason enough for his unkindness to others.