She dried her eyes on a microscopic handkerchief. “I understand, Mr. Shelley,” she said, gulping back her sobs. “If you want to ask any more questions I shall be pleased to answer them as well as I can.”

“I presume,” said Shelley, without further comment, “that your father did not approve of your engagement to Mr. Harry Baker.” The “Harry” was a shot in the dark, and Shelley was pleased to observe that she apparently did not notice the assumption.

“No,” she said. “He thought that Harry was just a fortune-hunter, after my money, and that I should get someone much better and richer for a husband.”

“I suppose,” said Shelley, “that there is a good deal of money in your family.”

“Oh yes,” she replied more cheerfully. “Father was a very rich man, you know. I don’t know where his money will be left, but there must be a will somewhere.”

“Who are his lawyers?”

“Samuel, Grant, and Samuel, of Chancery Lane.”

“Make a note of that, Cunningham,” said Shelley. “We shall have to see them tomorrow.”

“And anything else?” she asked.

“Your fiancé’s name and address.”

“Henry Baker, Manor School.”

“That’s close to here, I think you said.”

“Yes. In the next street.”

“Well,” Shelley went on, “I think that is about all for the moment, Miss Arnell. Oh, there is one thing more. Do you happen to know if your father was fond of almonds? The sugar-coated ones, I mean.”

She smiled. “His one vice, I called it,” she said. “He would chew sugared almonds all day long. He was not a heavy smoker, and he drank very little, so he used to say that he was entitled to his one little bit of dissipation.”

“Did he always buy them at one particular shop? A man with the habit of eating some particular kind of sweetmeat often does, you know,” Shelley explained.

“Yes, he did. He always bought them from a shop in the High Street here—a Mr. Martin sold them. I think they were some special brand that weren’t obtainable elsewhere. Father always said that he couldn’t get almonds from anywhere else that tasted half as nice.”

“Mr. Martin, High Street,” murmured Cunningham, writing the address down in his notebook.

“Did every one know that your father had this little peculiarity—this fancy for sugared almonds?” asked Shelley.

“He didn’t make any secret of it, if that’s what you mean,” she replied. “I should imagine that anyone who knew him at all well would be aware of it.”

“Anyone such as Dr. Wilkinson, for instance, or Mr. Baker,” Shelley suggested.

“Why, yes…But I don’t understand. Why all this interest in father’s taste in sweets?” She looked puzzled at the trend of the conversation.