“Well, if you’ll pardon me for going off in a slightly different direction, it’s important to the case if you can recall anything about other members of the staff, and their relationship to your employers.” He was putting this very poorly, and looked at Tom.

“What we mean is, whether they got along as well as you did with Lady Summerston. Of you, she speaks very highly indeed. She says no cook she’s tried since can begin to measure up.”

At this, Betsy Quinn dropped the balled-up handkerchief in her lap and managed a tiny smile. “Yes, it’s true, she did like my cooking. But your question was …?”

Tom said, “Whether she thought as highly of other staff members. Whether she had problems with them. Whether there was something going on in the house.”

Betsy frowned and was silent.

Tom rose. “We’re sorry, Mrs. Quinn, to have intruded at a time like this. Perhaps we could come back—”

But Betsy, having been called away for a few moments from the pain of the loss of her daughter, preferred to be called away longer; also, there was the question of “something going on in the house” to intrigue her. And the company of these two men, even though they were police. The woman obviously needed a little company. There seemed to be no one else.

“No, no. That’s all right. Please sit down. You’re saying—?”

“Asking,” said Jury, “more than saying. In your position, you’d have been the most likely person to have heard, well … rumors or simple gossip about the behavior of, say, one or another of the maids?”

She sat back. “Oh. Now, I wouldn’t want to—”

“Believe us, Betsy, nothing you say about anyone will go beyond these walls,” said Tom.

“We’re simply trying to work out how all of this, how what went on at that house could have affected your Moira.”

“I remember,” said Betsy, “there was trouble with the housemaid, Anna.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Mr. Gerald.”

Jury was surprised by the directness of this answer. “You mean something going on between the housemaid and Gerald Summerston?”

“Yes.”

Tom said, “Had she shown a little too much interest in him? Was that it?”

“Or the other way round,” said Betsy.

“So she was dismissed.”

“She went, and I think that’s why. It’s too bad, isn’t it, that the servants have to pay a price for what their supposed ‘betters’ have done?”

“It certainly is, Mrs. Quinn,” said Tom. “So then your daughter would have replaced the housemaid, right?”

“Not that one. The one who followed.”

“You’re not saying that she, too—”

“Oh, no. She quit on her own. Edith. It was Edith that Moira replaced.”

Tom leaned closer to her. “And Moira, herself?”