‘Go, Ford!’ Joseph said. ‘Just tell Dr Stoke that Mr Herriard has met with an accident, and beg him to come at once!’

‘Why the euphemism?’ enquired Stephen, as the stricken valet withdrew.

Joseph said, hushed: ‘Come here a moment, my boy. It wasn’t a stroke. Oh, my God, Stephen, Nat has been murdered!’

‘Have you gone mad?’ Stephen demanded, the brandy half-way to his lips.

‘Look!’ said Joseph, holding up his hand.

The palm of it was stained with blood. Stephen set down his glass with a jarring sound on the mantelpiece, and came back to Nathaniel’s body. ‘How – ? Where – ? What the devil are you driving at?’

Joseph dragged his handkerchief from his pocket, and passed it over his face. ‘I was trying to straighten him,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I felt something sticky on his back. He’s been stabbed, Stephen! My brother Nat!’

‘Damn it, he was in here with the door locked!’ Stephen said. ‘He can’t have been stabbed!’

‘Look!’ Joseph said, averting his face. ‘You must forgive me, but I can’t. Stupid of me, but I can’t. Not again!’

‘The brandy’s on the table,’ Stephen said, turning Nathaniel’s body on to its face. ‘My God, you’re right!’

Joseph rose from his knees, tottered to the table, and sank into a chair by it, dropping his head in his hands, and groaning. Nathaniel’s coat, over the lower lumbar region, was sticky with congealing blood. There was a slit in the material, clotted round the edges with blood. Stephen said curtly: ‘He must have bled internally. Hardly any outside. Now we are in a mess!’

‘It doesn’t seem possible! I can’t believe it! Nat, of all people!’

‘Here, have some brandy!’ Stephen said, fetching his glass from the mantelpiece.

Joseph gulped down the neat spirit, and achieved a wan smile. ‘Yes, yes, we must be calm! We must try to think. This is a terrible business, Stephen. One’s brain seems to be numb. Those young people downstairs, making merry in their innocence, while here, in this room, you and I confront –’

‘Can it!’ said Stephen brutally. ‘Merriment is not the predominant note of this sanguinary party, and you know it! And as for innocence – I wonder who the devil did this?’

This reflection seemed to pull Joseph together. He sat up, and gave a gasp. ‘One had not thought of that! I suppose the shock of it – Stephen, this is appalling! Who could have done so terrible a thing?’

Stephen walked over to the windows, and twitched the curtains apart. After a brief inspection, he turned, and said: ‘Do you realise that the door was locked, and every window shut?’

Joseph, who was wandering about the room in a distracted way, blinked at him. ‘The bathroom! That’s how the murderer must have got in!’

Stephen’s eyes went swiftly to the door leading into the bathroom. It stood ajar, and a light showed beyond it. He walked into the room. A bath had been prepared for Nathaniel; his towels were laid over the hot rail; the bathmat had been spread on the floor. The door was locked, and only the ventilator above the casement window was open.