Lord Charles beat gently on his wife’s shoulder with his thin hand. Without looking up at him she leant towards him.

“I’m glad it’s Dr. Kantripp,” she said. “He knows us so well. It would have been much worse if he had been a stranger.”

“It would have made no difference.”.

“None?” asked Charlot on an indrawn breath.

“Very little, at any rate.”

“What will happen?” she asked.

“A man from the police-station is here. At the moment he is telephoning Scotland Yard. There’s another man in there with Gabriel.”

There was a short silence broken by Charlot.

“Well,” she said, “none of us tried to kill him, of course, so I suppose we simply tell the truth.”

Nobody answered her.

“Don’t we?” Charlot persisted.

“We’ll tell the truth,” said Lord Charles, “certainly.” He looked at his children. “I want you to listen carefully. Your uncle was alone in the lift for some time before he and Aunt Violet were taken down. It seems that he was sitting in the lift with his hat pulled forward and his head bent. Your aunt only discovered that he was hurt after the lift had gone some way down. You all must have heard the return. Now each of you may have to account for your movements after your—after he got into the lift. Try to remember exactly what you did and where you were. If…”

He broke off abruptly. The doctor had come into the room.

Dr. Kantripp was stocky and dark, with a pleasingly ugly face. He looked profoundly unhappy.

“They’re coming,” he said, “immediately.”

“Good,” said Lord Charles.

“Dr. Kantripp,” said Charlot, “will he live?”

“He may—survive for a little, Lady Charles.”

“Will he be able to speak?”

“I think it most unlikely.”

“Pray God he does!”

He looked sharply at her and it would have been impossible to say whether he felt doubt or relief at her exclamation.

“We shall have a second opinion, of course,” he said. “I’ve telephoned Sir Matthew Cairnstock. He’s a brain man. I’ve sent for a nurse.”

“Yes. Will you look at Violet—my sister-in-law? She’s in my room.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“I’ll come if you want me. She asked to be alone with the maid.”

“I see.” Dr. Kantripp hesitated and then said: “They’ll want to talk to the servants, you know.”

“Why the servants, particularly?” asked Lord Charles quickly.

“Well—the instrument. You see it looks as if it came from their part of the world. The kitchen.”

Frid spoke abruptly on a hard, shrill note. “It was a skewer, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then it wasn’t in the kitchen. It was left on the hall table.”

“Dinner is served, m’lady,” said Baskett from the door.

Roberta would never have believed that dinner with the Lampreys could be a complete nightmare. It seemed incredible that they should be there, sitting in silence round the long table, solemnly helping themselves to dishes that repelled them. Charlot left the room twice, the first time to take another look at Lady Wutherwood, the second time to see the nurse and to ask if there was anything she needed for her patient. The specialist arrived at the same time as the men from Scotland Yard. Lord Charles went out to meet them but returned in a few minutes to say Dr. Kantripp was still there and that he, with one of the police, had gone into the room where Lord Wutherwood lay. Only two of the police were in the flat now. They were plain-clothes men, Lord Charles said, and seemed to be very inoffensive fellows. The others had gone but he did not know for how long. Roberta wondered if the Lampreys shared her feeling that the flat no longer belonged to them. When they had chopped their savouries into small pieces and pushed them about their plates for a minute or two, Charlot said suddenly: “This is too much. Let’s go into the drawing-room.”