Bessie stared back at him. “No,” she said. “How could I? And it’s indecent, this bringing up one horror after another. I hate this house anyhow. It gives me the jitters. It always did. Now I can’t even have a quiet evening. It makes me sick.”

She slammed out of the room, leaving us wordless and uncomfortable. It was Maud as usual who took the situation in hand.

“I don’t know that I blame her,” she said calmly. “I’ve felt like shrieking my head off all day. I’ll send Hilda to see if she is all right. Now, Mr. Conway, what can we do for you?”

What we could do was simple enough on the surface. He wanted the details of the dinner the night before, the list of guests, when they left, and so on. I have that list before me now. Of the people immediately concerned, most had left shortly before midnight. Bill Sterling had remained a few minutes, talking to Maud on the terrace about her condition. It had been exactly twelve when he left. Everyone had gone in cars except Julian Stoddard, who had said he wanted a walk and would take the footpath home.

As for the rest of us, Tony and Bessie had been at the club, and I had been in my room. Jim looked over his list discontentedly.

“In other words, at least a dozen people were in the vicinity about the time Morgan was killed,” he said. “Not counting the servants. Where were the cars the guests came in, Tony?”

“I wasn’t here. The chauffeurs usually wait down by the garage.”

“They were gone before midnight?”

“All but the doctor’s,” Maud said. “We talked on the terrace for a few minutes.”

“You saw no lights in the playhouse?”

“You couldn’t see the playhouse.”

He was still interviewing the servants when I went up to bed. They came in, looking scared and virtually tongue-tied, but they had no information to give him. All of them insisted that they had not been near the playhouse, either the night before or at any time recently.

I watched Tony through most of that long interrogation. He drank three highballs that night in rapid succession. Then abruptly he left the room, and when I went upstairs I was surprised to see him coming out of the door to Bessie’s sitting room. He looked puzzled and angry. When he saw me limping along he came over and took my arm, and I could feel that he was shaking. He followed me into my room.

“Let me stay a minute, Pat,” he said. “I need to get quiet, or I’ll go out and kill somebody myself. Do you mind if I talk? I’ve either got to talk or get drunk. Maybe both.”

At first, however, he seemed to have nothing to say. He lit a cigarette and began to pace the floor, his hands in his pockets, his head bent. When he did speak his voice was thick.