‘Not a great deal, sir, and that’s a fact. There’s three servants living in the house, a Mr and Mrs Hipkin who do butler and cook, and a young girl called Sadie Welsh, who’s housemaid. They all went to a cinema in Baxtonbridge on Friday night and returned by the front drive. There’s another girl—Ethel Jones—who comes in as a daily from Bossicote. She leaves at five o’clock in the afternoon. I’ll get on to her tomorrow, but it doesn’t look promising. The Hipkins seem a very decent couple. Devoted to Miss Troy. They’ve not got much to say in favour of this crowd. To Mrs Hipkin’s way of thinking they’re all out of the same box. She said she wasn’t surprised at the murder and expected worse.’

‘What? Wholesale slaughter did she mean?’

‘I don’t think she knew. She’s a Presbyterian—Auld Licht— maiden name McQumpha. She says painting from the figure is no better than living in open sin, and she gave it as her opinion that Sonia Gluck was fair soused in wickedness. That kind of thing. Hipkin said he always thought Garcia had bats in the belfy, and Sadie said he once tried to assault her and she gave him a smack on the chops. She’s rather a lively girl, Sadie is. They say Miss Seacliff’s no lady because of the way she speaks to the servants. The only one they seemed to have much time for was the Honourable Basil Pilgrim.’

‘Good old snobs. What about Garcia’s evening meal on Friday?’

‘Well, I did get something there, in a way. Sadie took it on a tray to the studio at seven-thirty. She tapped on the screen inside the door and Mr Garcia called out to her to leave the tray there. Sadie said she didn’t know but what he had naked women exhibiting themselves on the platform, so she put it down. When she went to the studio on Saturday morning the tray was still there, untouched. She looked into the studio but didn’t do anything in the way of housework. She’s not allowed to touch anything on the throne and didn’t notice the drape. Garcia was supposed to make his own bed. Sadie says it’s her belief he just pulled the counterpane over it and that’s what we found, sir, isn’t it?’

‘Garcia wasn’t there on Saturday morning?’

‘No. Sadie says he’d gone and all his stuff as far as she could make out. She said the room smelt funny, so she opened the window. She noticed a queer smell there on Friday night, too. I wondered if it was the acid Bailey found the marks of, but she said no. She’s smelt the acid before, when they’ve been using it for etching, and it wasn’t the same.’