‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘No doubt you want to break it to Rose, Mark, but in my opinion you will do better to let me see both of them first. I shall stay there until you appear. Order the car.’

Mark rang the bell. ‘And you needn’t wait,’ she added. ‘Take Miss Kettle with you.’ It was characteristic of Lady Lacklander that she restricted her use of the more peremptory form of address to the second person. She now used it. ‘Kettle,’ she said, ‘we’re grateful to you and mustn’t impose. Would you rather come with me or go back with my grandson? Which is best, do you think?’

‘I’ll go with the Doctor, thank you, Lady Lacklander. I suppose,’ Nurse Kettle added composedly, ‘that as I found the body I’ll be required to make a statement.’

She had moved with Mark to the door when Lady Lacklander’s voice checked her.

‘And I suppose,’ the elderly voice said, ‘that as I may have been the last person to speak to him, I shall be required to make one too.’

II

In the drawing-room at Hammer there was an incongruous company assembled. Kitty Cartarette, Mark Lacklander and Nurse Kettle waited there while Lady Lacklander sat with Rose in the Colonel’s study. She had arrived first at Hammer, having been driven round in her great car while Mark and Nurse Kettle waited in the valley and George rang up the police station at Chyning. George had remembered he was a Justice of the Peace and was believed to be in telephonic conference with his brethren of the bench.

So it had fallen to Lady Lacklander to break the news to Kitty whom she had found, wearing her black velvet tights and flame-coloured top, in the drawing-room. Lady Lacklander in the course of a long life spent in many embassies had encountered every kind of eccentricity in female attire and was pretty well informed as to the predatory tactics of women whom, in the Far East, she had been wont to describe as ‘light cruisers.’ She had made up her mind about Kitty Cartarette, but had seemed to be prepared to concede her certain qualities if she showed any signs of possessing them.

She had said: ‘My dear; I’m the bearer of bad tidings.’ And noticing that Kitty at once looked very frightened, had remarked to herself: ‘She thinks I mean to tackle her about George.’

‘Are you?’ Kitty had said. ‘What sort of tidings, please?’