What he hoped she might be able to do she had no idea. An attempt to inaugurate a conversation upon any other subject than Nathaniel’s death would be regarded as callous, and must fail. She began to drink her soup, ignoring Joseph.

Valerie, growing momently more temperamental, refused soup, saying that it seemed awful to be sitting at dinner with Mr Herriard dead upstairs.

‘You don’t drink soup because you think it’s bad for your figure. You told us so,’ said Paula.

‘Some people think a great deal of the Hay Diet,’ suddenly remarked Maud. ‘I daresay it is very good, though I myself have never had any trouble with my digestion. But Joseph has to be more careful. Rich food never agrees with him.’

Sturry, who had been conferring with the footman in the doorway, approached Joseph’s chair, and bent over it, murmuring bodingly: ‘Dr Stoke, sir.’

Joseph leaned forward. ‘Stephen, my boy! The doctor!’

‘You’d better take him up,’ said Stephen.

‘You don’t wish to be present? You have a right to be there.’

‘Thanks, not in the middle of dinner.’

Joseph put back his chair, and rose, with what was felt to be a gallant attempt at a smile. ‘It shall be as you like, old fellow. I understand.’

‘I imagine you might.’

‘Hush! No bitter words tonight!’ Joseph said, as he left the room.

He found the doctor in the hall, handing his coat and hat to the footman. ‘Stoke!’ he said. ‘You know why you have been sent for? I needn’t tell you.’

‘Herriard’s man told me that there had been an accident to his master,’ the doctor replied. He looked narrowly at Joseph, and said in a sharper voice: ‘Nothing serious, I trust?’

Joseph made a hopeless gesture. ‘Dead!’ he said.

‘Dead!’ The doctor was plainly startled. ‘Good God, what has happened?’

‘A terrible thing, Stoke,’ Joseph said, shuddering. ‘I will take you to him.’

‘Is he in his own room?’ Stoke asked, picking up his bag.

He was a spare, active man, and he ran up the broad stairs ahead of Joseph. Ford was sitting on a chair outside Nathaniel’s door; the doctor glanced frowningly at him, and passed into the room. When he saw the position of Nathaniel’s body, he went quickly up to it, and dropped on to his knees. The briefest of inspections convinced him that his patient was indeed dead; he looked up, as Joseph came into the room, and asked curtly: ‘The valet spoke of an accident. How did this happen?’

Joseph averted his eyes from Nathaniel’s body, saying in a low tone: ‘Look at his back, Stoke!’

The doctor looked quickly down. Stephen had left Nathaniel lying much as he had found him, on his left side, exposing the little bloodstained rent in his coat.

There was a short silence; Joseph turned his back upon the doctor’s activities, and gazed down into the dying embers in the grate.

The doctor rose from his knees. ‘I suppose you realise that this is a case of murder?’ he said.