‘My dear, what a dreadful thing to say!’ exclaimed Joseph. ‘He may have his faults, but we’ve no reason to think him dishonest!’

‘He loathes Stephen,’ Mathilda said obstinately.

‘Nonsense, Tilda! You really mustn’t say such things!’

‘Do, for God’s sake, stop looking at everyone through rose-coloured spectacles!’ said Stephen. ‘Sturry’s hated me ever since I told Uncle Nat he was watering the port, and you know it!’

‘Well, but that isn’t to say that he would deliberately try to harm you, old man!’ protested Joseph.

‘You see to it that he goes and swears whatever it is he’s got to swear,’ said Mathilda.

‘All right, I will. It’ll annoy him,’ said Stephen.

‘All this,’ said Maud, ‘has nothing to do with the Life of the Empress Elizabeth!’

‘If you put it like that,’ said Stephen, ‘nothing so far has had anything to do with that thrice-accursed female!’

‘I do not know why you should speak of the Empress in that rude way,’ said Maud, with tremendous dignity. ‘You know nothing about her.’

‘No one who has been privileged to live under the same roof with you for the past three days,’ said Stephen, losing patience, ‘can claim to know nothing about the Empress!’

This outrageous remark very nearly precipitated a quite unlooked-for crisis. Maud’s bosom swelled, and she was just about to utter words which her fascinated audience felt would have been shattering to anyone less hardened than Stephen, when Sturry entered the room with the cocktail-tray. Even under the stress of powerful emotion Maud knew that a lady never permitted herself to quarrel in front of the servants; and instead of scarifying Stephen, she held out the Life of the Empress to Sturry, and asked him if he knew how it had found its way into the incinerator.

Looking outraged, Sturry disclaimed all knowledge. Maud requested him to make enquiries amongst the staff, to which he bowed, without, however, vouchsafing any reply.

‘Just a moment!’ said Stephen, as Sturry was about to withdraw. ‘I’m informed that you and Ford will be required to swear to the signature of the late Mr Herriard’s will. In the existing circumstances, it will be more convenient for you to do so before a Commissioner for Oaths than to wait until the will’s admitted to probate. I’ll run you into the town tomorrow, and you can do so then.’

Sturry cast him a cold look. ‘Might I enquire, sir, the nature of the oath required of me?’

‘It’s only a formality,’ Stephen answered. ‘You have merely to swear that Mr Herriard signed his will in your presence.’

Sturry drew in his breath with a sucking sound, and said with an air of quiet triumph: ‘I regret, sir, I could not see my way to do that.’

No one had really believed Mathilda’s grim prognostication, and a startled silence fell upon the company. Joseph broke it. ‘Come, come, Sturry!’ he said. ‘Is that quite worthy of you? Of course you must do it! The Law requires it of you.’