Then a door opened and Superintendent Nash stepped out into the hall with Symmington behind him.

“Oh, Mr. Burton,” he said. “I was just going to telephone you. I’m glad you are here.”

He didn’t ask me—then—why I was here.

He turned his head and said to Symmington:

“I’ll use this room if I may.”

It was a small morning room with a window on the front of the house.

“Certainly, certainly.”

Symmington’s poise was pretty good, but he looked desperately tired. Superintendent Nash said gently:

“I should have some breakfast if I were you, Mr. Symmington. You and Miss Holland and Miss Megan will feel much better after coffee and eggs and bacon. Murder is a nasty business on an empty stomach.”

He spoke in a comfortable family doctor kind of way.

Symmington gave a faint attempt at a smile and said:

“Thank you, superintendent, I’ll take your advice.”

I followed Nash into the little morning room and he shut the door. He said then:

“You’ve got here very quickly? How did you hear?”

I told him that Megan had rung me up. I felt well-disposed towards Superintendent Nash. He, at any rate, had not forgotten that Megan, too, would be in need of breakfast.

“I hear that you telephoned last night, Mr. Burton, asking about this girl? Why was that?”

I suppose it did seem odd. I told him about Agnes’s telephone call to Partridge and her nonappearance. He said, “Yes, I see….”

He said it slowly and reflectively, rubbing his chin.

Then he sighed:

“Well,” he said. “It’s murder now, right enough. Direct physical action. The question is, what did the girl know? Did she say anything to this Partridge? Anything definite?”

“I don’t think so. But you can ask her.”

“Yes. I shall come up and see her when I’ve finished here.”

“What happened exactly?” I asked. “Or don’t you know yet?”

“Near enough. It was the maids’ day out—”

“Both of them?”

“Yes, it seems that there used to be two sisters here who liked to go out together, so Mrs. Symmington arranged it that way. Then when these two came, she kept to the same arrangement. They used to leave cold supper laid out in the dining room, and Miss Holland used to get tea.”

“I see.”

“It’s pretty clear up to a point. The cook, Rose, comes from Nether Mickford, and in order to get there on her day out she has to catch the half past two bus. So Agnes has to finish clearing up lunch always. Rose used to wash up the supper things in the evenings to even things up.

“That’s what happened yesterday. Rose went off to catch the bus at two twenty-five, Symmington left for his office at five-and-twenty to three. Elsie Holland and the children went out at a quarter to three. Megan Hunter went out on her bicycle about five minutes later. Agnes would then be alone in the house. As far as I can make out, she normally left the house between three o’clock and half past three.”