“No, we cannot,” Victoria agreed. “Preston and I will stay together, and we won’t leave the house. I hope that will suffice.”

“I’ll be with Fen,” Pat said.

“Bill, Jack, and I will stick together, then,” Jimmy said. “I don’t know if Anna will get up. She had a dreadful night, Mother said. Everything sinking in, I suppose.”

“Poor thing,” Victoria said. “Can I do anything for Aunt Mattie?”

Jimmy opened his hands. “You can try. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

Victoria and Preston headed out. Jack looked between the remnants of the party. “And now I suppose we simply wait?”

“Actually, while you three are here, I’d like a word,” Pat said. “I think it might be useful if we compared notes on what happened yesterday.”

“Ought we not leave that to the police?” Jimmy said.

“We don’t know when they’re going to arrive, and meanwhile we’re all in here together. And the fact is, I think Fen and I might have been among the last ones to see him alive, excepting the murderer, so—”

“Really?” Bill said. “When was that?”

“When we left you in the East Wing.”

She only realised how her words sounded when they came out. Bill blinked. Jack’s well-shaped brows rose steeply.

“We had that chat in the downstairs sitting room of the East Wing,” Pat ploughed on. “As Fen and I left, we passed Jimmy heading along the corridor towards us, and then Maurice Haworth coming through the hall behind him.” This was sounding worse and worse. Jimmy’s cheeks had reddened. “That was at half past eleven, because the clock struck right next to me,” she finished desperately. “So of course it would be useful to know who saw him after that.”

“You said you spoke to him an hour before dinner, Jack,” Bill said. “Where was that?”

Jack frowned in thought. “I don’t think it can have been an hour before, you know, now I consider. I was in here with Maurice at some point that morning. We exchanged some talk, about nothing in particular, then he looked at the clock, and went away in a meaningful sort of fashion in the direction of the hall. I assumed he had an appointment of some kind.”

“With whom?” Pat demanded.

“I have no idea. I might be wrong about that; it was merely an impression I had because he looked at the clock in such a marked way.”

“What time was it?”

Jack exhaled. “That’s what I’m trying to remember. The thing is, I had no reason to notice. I had nothing else to do so the time wasn’t important. It might well have been around half past eleven, or a little before, but I shouldn’t care to say so on oath. I certainly didn’t see him again after that, whenever it was, poor fellow. So you saw him, Jimmy?”