The mere mention of a body nearly sent Rose off again, but I quelled her with a stern eye and she poured out a cup of inky fluid.

“There you are, young woman,” I said to Megan. “You drink that down. You haven’t got any brandy, I suppose, Rose?”

Rose said rather doubtfully that there was a drop of cooking brandy left over from the Christmas puddings.

“That’ll do,” I said, and put a dollop of it into Megan’s cup. I saw by Rose’s eye that she thought it a good idea.

I told Megan to stay with Rose.

“I can trust you to look after Miss Megan?” I said, and Rose replied in a gratified way, “Oh yes, sir.”

I went through into the house. If I knew Rose and her kind, she would soon find it necessary to keep her strength up with a little food, and that would be good for Megan too. Confound these people, why couldn’t they look after the child?

Fuming inwardly I ran into Elsie Holland in the hall. She didn’t seem surprised to see me. I suppose that the gruesome excitement of the discovery made one oblivious of who was coming and going. The constable, Bert Rundle, was by the front door.

Elsie Holland gasped out:

“Oh, Mr. Burton, isn’t it awful? Whoever can have done such a dreadful thing?”

“It was murder, then?”

“Oh, yes. She was struck on the back of the head. It’s all blood and hair—oh! it’s awful—and bundled into that cupboard. Who can have done such a wicked thing? And why? Poor Agnes, I’m sure she never did anyone any harm.”

“No,” I said. “Somebody saw to that pretty promptly.”

She stared at me. Not, I thought, a quick-witted girl. But she had good nerves. Her colour was, as usual, slightly heightened by excitement, and I even fancied that in a macabre kind of way, and in spite of a naturally kind heart, she was enjoying the drama.

She said apologetically: “I must go up to the boys. Mr. Symmington is so anxious that they shouldn’t get a shock. He wants me to keep them right away.”

“Megan found the body, I hear,” I said. “I hope somebody is looking after her?”

I will say for Elsie Holland that she looked conscience stricken.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I forgot all about her. I do hope she’s all right. I’ve been so rushed, you know, and the police and everything—but it was remiss of me. Poor girl, she must be feeling bad. I’ll go and look for her at once.”

I relented.

“She’s all right,” I said. “Rose is looking after her. You get along to the kids.”

She thanked me with a flash of white tombstone teeth and hurried upstairs. After all, the boys were her job, and not Megan— Megan was nobody’s job. Elsie was paid to look after Symmington’s blinking brats. One could hardly blame her for doing so.

As she flashed round the corner of the stairs, I caught my breath. For a minute I caught a glimpse of a Winged Victory, deathless and incredibly beautiful, instead of a conscientious nursery governess.