“I don’t know that he was right behind me,” Jimmy snapped. “I’m told he was. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Jack’s brows drew together slightly. “You don’t seem to have been paying attention to much that morning. You don’t recall where you were, or who was around you—”

“He was with me,” Bill said.

“I dare say I was in a flap,” Jimmy said. “Forgive me if the end of my engagement and my father’s troubles and Maurice’s behaviour seemed more important to me than listening to footsteps on the stairs.”

“So you did hear footsteps?” Jack asked.

“No!”

“Oh!” That was Fen, hand coming to her mouth.

“What’s that, Miss Carruth?” Bill asked.

“Footsteps. I just remembered. When Pat and I left you, Mr. Merton, we went through the hall, where we saw Mr. Haworth, and straight up the west stairs to Pat’s room, while my maid packed. But do you recall, Pat, we heard footsteps go past the door? And I do remember that because we’d been talking about private matters”—she gave Jimmy a nod to indicate the broken engagement—“and I didn’t wish to be overheard. So I stopped, and someone went past, coming from the East Wing and going past our rooms. And I did think they were walking awfully quietly. I remember wondering if they might have been listening and telling myself not to be silly.”

“You’re right,” Pat said. “Someone came past...oh, at perhaps twenty to twelve, would you say? Not much later. Quarter to at most.”

Bill frowned. “Along the first floor back corridor, coming from the East Wing. Who would come that way? Staff?”

“Can’t see why. There’s a servants’ door on the west side,” Jimmy said. “And Ma told them not to trouble with anything in the East Wing while we’ve a houseful of guests.”

“Nobody came along there before,” Fen said. “Or, at least, that was the first time I’d noticed someone walking past my room in the whole time I’ve been here.”

“There’s no obvious reason for anyone to come that way, is there?” Bill said. “Not unless you were already on the first floor of the East Wing.”

Fen’s eyes were huge. “Was that the killer, walking past Pat’s bedroom?”

“It’s a theory,” Bill said. “A pretty good one, but still a theory for now. We’ll need to pin down who the walker was. Man or woman?”

“I don’t know,” Pat said. “It was a fairly light tread. If it was a man, he wasn’t thumping around like a herd of elephants. Which rules you out,” she added to Bill. It was an automatic sisterly jibe, but Jack Bouvier-Lynes raised his brows with a sardonic lift that brought the colour to her cheeks. “That was a joke.”