The Inspector fully appreciated the fine delivery of these lines, but he was shrewd enough to realise that with the slightest encouragement Joseph would turn a police investigation into a drama centred about his own ebullient personality, and he took a firm line at once, saying prosaically: ‘Well, that’s very kind of you, sir, I’m sure. But it’s no use us arguing about who did it, or who you don’t think could have done it. All I want you to do, if you’ll be so good, is to cast your mind back to what happened when you and your nephew entered Mr Herriard’s room after the murder had been committed.’

Joseph shuddered, and covered his eyes with his hand. ‘No, no, I cannot!’

‘Well, you can have a try, can’t you, sir?’ said Hemingway, as one humouring a child. ‘After all, it only happened yesterday.’

Joseph let his hand fall. ‘Only – yesterday! Is it possible? Yet it seems as though a lifetime had passed between then and now!’

‘You can take it from me that it hasn’t,’ said Hemingway, somewhat tartly. ‘Now, when you went upstairs to call your brother down to dinner, you found his valet outside the room, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. It was he who gave me the first premonition that something was wrong. He told me that he could get no answer to his knocking, that the door was locked. I remember that so distinctly – so appallingly distinctly!’

‘And what did you do then?’

Joseph sat down on a chair, and rested one elbow on the table. ‘What did I do? I tried the door, I called to my brother. There was no answer. I was alarmed. Oh, I had no suspicion of the dreadful truth! I thought he had been taken ill, fainted, perhaps. I called to Stephen.’

‘Why did you want him particularly, sir?’

Joseph made one of his little vague gestures. ‘I don’t know. Instinctively one wishes for support. I knew too that my strength would not avail to break down the door. He and Ford burst open the lock, and I saw my poor brother, lying on the floor, as though asleep.’

‘What happened next, sir?’

‘How can I tell you?’ Joseph demanded. ‘One’s heart stood still! The world span round. I suppose one knew then, intuitively, that the worst had happened. Yet one clutched at a frail thread of hope!’

‘And what about Mr Stephen, sir? Did he clutch at it too?’ asked Hemingway, unimpressed.

‘I think he must have. I recall that he sent Ford at once for some brandy. But an instant later he had realised the awful truth. As I dropped to my knees beside my brother’s body, he said: “He’s dead.”’

‘It didn’t take him long to discover that, did it?’

‘I think his instinct must have told him. I could not at first believe it! I told Stephen to fetch a mirror. I would not believe it. But Stephen was right. Only he thought that Nat had had a stroke. He said so at once, and for a few moments I was mercifully permitted to think so too.’