“You’re a highly useful person, Miss Pinkerton,” he said, smiling down at her. “If I didn’t think you’d slap me I’d kiss you.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Which?” he said quizzically. “Slap or kiss?”

“Both,” she said, and went out.

Ida was dusting the lower hall when she went back. She did not look up, and Hilda did not speak to her. She had no idea that it was to be the last time she was to see the girl alive.

Chapter 20

The inquest was held at two o’clock that afternoon. It was very brief. Carlton Fairbanks identified his mother’s body, and nothing new was developed. Susie came home looking sick and went to bed, but Marian stayed downtown to make arrangements for the funeral and to buy the conventional black.

She was still out when the inspector arrived at four that afternoon. Jan was better, sitting up in bed, with Courtney Brooke in and out of the room, but mostly in. They did not talk much. It seemed to content them merely to be together. And Carlton was in the library. He had had a drink or two, but he was entirely sober.

He did not seem surprised to see the inspector. He stood up stiffly.

“I rather expected you,” he said. “Jan’s accident, and all that. But I want to ask you not to judge us on what may seem unusual. If any one of us has been at fault—”

Here, however, his voice failed him. It was a moment or so before he pulled himself together.

“I know things look bad,” he said. “When I saw the paint was gone—But it has nothing to do with my mother’s death. Nothing. I am innocent, and so—God help her—is my wife.”

He followed the inspector up the stairs. Hilda, watching them come, thought he would not make the top. He rallied, however, when she unlocked the door of the death room, although he did not look at the bed.

The inspector was brisk and businesslike. He went at once to the closet and ignoring the safe got down on his knees and examined the baseboard. He used a flashlight, and he rapped on it and listened, his head on one side, while Carlton stood mutely by. When he got up his voice was brisk.

“All right,” he said. “Now I’d like to see your room, please.”

This time Carlton led the way. He looked shrunken, incredibly aged. Once inside he closed the door to Susie’s room, but when the inspector opened his closet door he spoke for the first time.

“I give you my word of honor,” he said bleakly, “that I knew nothing about this until yesterday morning. I would have told you before, but it involved”—he swallowed—“it involved someone very dear to me.”

He said nothing more. He stood silent while the inspector took out the row of neatly treed shoes. Even the tan ones were there, although the paint had been removed. The inspector picked up his flashlight and turned it on the baseboard.