“And perhaps Superintendent Jury will join us.” Tom motioned to Jury, who together with Tom followed Flora into a small room to the left of the entrance where Jury remembered waiting, several years earlier, for Crick to lead him upstairs to Lady Summerston. The portrait of Hannah Lean still hung at the top of these stairs. Jury looked away. Then, once inside the library, his eye followed a chain that led from the chandelier, which was no longer hanging but pulled back toward the bannister of a little balcony.

As they sat down, Tom said, “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind going over what happened here last night. I know it’s upsetting to have to keep repeating it, but I’d rather hear it from you than from the police. And incidentally, as I’m not currently with the police, you should feel under no obligation to talk to me at all. I’m merely helping out.”

This little speech was delivered in Brownell’s quiet and even tone, one that seemed to file away the hard edges of the experience.

Flora Flood told him. “It was just when we were starting dinner, around half past seven. Tony turned up and said he needed to talk to me and we went into the drawing room.” She nodded to indicate the room they had just left. “He was really angry; he’d just got the papers about the divorce. I said I couldn’t understand why he was so surprised as I’d told him I was filing for divorce. ‘Only, not so soon,’ he said. ‘We’ve been separated for nearly two years, Tony. It’s not soon.’ He was fuming. He was becoming increasingly upset and told me he wouldn’t sign any papers. When I told him he’d simply have to, he started toward me and I was scared. Tony could get very—physical. He was a threatening person to a lot of people. I backed away to the desk. My uncle keeps an automatic in the drawer. I took it out and aimed it at him. He kept coming toward me, so I pointed the gun at his leg and pulled the trigger. At the same time I heard something behind me and before I could look around, there was another shot and Tony crumpled to the floor. I went to him; I wasn’t sure whether he was dead or alive. I ran back to the French door, where I’d heard the sound but there was no one there. It all happened so fast. Then the cook came in and Bub, who lives here, came in and the room seemed full of people.” She looked away from him, into the drawing room and toward the French door, as if last night’s intruder might reappear there.

Tom Brownell said nothing.