It was nothing like what he had expected – it could not have been farther from reality. He looked at Mrs Bannister, utterly astonished, and saw her still standing in the doorway like a watching fury: a big woman, cold, commanding, in charge of this and of all other moments. It was as if, even though he entered the apartment, he would never get past her: she was the last opponent – like the death she masked – the last enemy who would always defeat him.

He felt confused, and his sleepless brain ticked and fluttered uncontrollably. He had come here to handle this with ice-cold logic, with quick, all-embracing observation – and already she had thrown him off balance, with a single look, a single counter-charge.

“I came up to see her last night,” he said with difficulty. “I love her.”

“Fine sort of love!” answered Mrs Bannister scornfully. “Creeping in like a thief … What did you do to her? And how could you love a girl who was blind and deaf and dumb?”

Oh Christ! he thought, she’s not even giving that away … Suddenly despairing, he brushed past Mrs Bannister, and walked into the living-room. It was deserted, and all the doors leading out of it were shut. The whole apartment had a peace about it – a suspect peace, a bitter silence. A few yards down the barred-off passage, where the silence was deepest and most bitter, Esther lay. His thoughts grew fanciful, toying with a phrase from the morbid air. Death’s bony arms, clipped round her, had supplanted his own.

Mrs Bannister followed him inside. “I don’t know what you want here,” she said hardly. “It’s all finished now. The police have just gone. They think it was an accident. I didn’t tell them anything different. I didn’t say you’d been here. I didn’t show them the handkerchief. I don’t want a scandal.”

There were two things, Harry thought, not listening to Mrs Bannister’s tirading, nightmare voice, which was already assuming his futility and defeat. It could have been an accident, or it could have been murder. If Mrs Bannister knew that he had been there, it was very likely to be the latter. But how did one make a start on that, when she held all the cards and was dictating the game?

“I did nothing,” he said. He realized it was a mistake even to seem to be on the defensive, but he could not summon the wit to handle it in any better way. “You know that damned well!”

“I know nothing of the sort,” answered Mrs Bannister. She stood opposite him, growing tougher, harder, more triumphant every moment. “I know you crept in, and out again, and that Esther died – just about that time, or soon afterwards. Whatever happened between you, she took the wrong sort of sleeping pills – the knock-out kind instead of the harmless ones – as soon as you left. Or did you force her to take them?” Her glance flickered like the exploring tongue of a snake. “Was that it? Did you have to keep her quiet, for some reason?”