"But if you think that that's got anything to do with the murder you're a fool!" Paula said. "I shouldn't have told you, only that the whole house knows it, so that you were bound to find it out sooner or later. Do you want to know anything else?"
"Yes, miss, I want to know what you did when you left the drawing-room after tea."
"Oh, I don't know!" she said. "Do you think I keep a record of my movements?"
"Did you go straight upstairs?"
She condescended to give the matter a little thought. "No; I went into the library. I went upstairs later, with Mr. Roydon."
"Did you go to your own room?"
"Of course! Where else should I go?"
"And you did not come out of it again until you joined the rest of the party downstairs?"
"No," she replied briefly.
He let her go, and sent for Edgar Mottisfont. If she had been belligerent, and Roydon patronising, Mottisfont provided a contrast to them both by using an ingratiating manner. That he was nervous was plain to be seen, but they were all nervous, the Inspector thought, and no wonder. Mottisfont seemed more shocked than any of them, reiterating his horror, and his incomprehension. He had been intimately acquainted with Nathaniel for close on thirty years; for many years he had spent Christmas with Nathaniel. Nothing like this, he said, unconscious of absurdity, had ever happened before.
"I understand there had been some unpleasantness," the Inspector said.
"He was a hard man. Out of touch with the younger generation, you know. It was Miss Herriard's fault for bringing Roydon here. She should have known better! However, that's not my affair. I've never pretended to understand that couple. Seemed to take a delight in annoying their uncle! I don't know why Herriard put up with them, but there's no doubt he was fond of them, in his way."
"May I ask, sir, if Miss Herriard had any particular reason for bringing Mr. Roydon here?"
Mottisfont seemed to feel that he had said too much. He replied evasively: "You'd better ask her. It had nothing to do with me."
"There was no quarrel between yourself and Mr. Herriard?"
As he put the question, the Inspector knew that there had been a quarrel. It was as though a curtain was drawn swiftly over Mottisfont's face, shutting him in. He had been a little off his guard, talking querulously about the young Herriards, but now he was wary again, trying to make up his mind, the Inspector guessed, what he should say. Probably he didn't know who might have overheard his quarrel; didn't dare lie; didn't want to tell the truth. All the same, these nervous witnesses! The Inspector waited, keeping his gaze steady on Mottisfont's face.
The weak grey eyes behind Mottisfont's spectacles shifted. "Not a quarrel. Oh, dear me, no! Nothing of that sort! Why, we've been in partnership for twenty-five years! What an idea! We merely disagreed about a matter purely concerned with the business. Herriard was more or less of a sleeping-partner, you know, but very fond of interfering with the actual running of the business, if you gave him the chance. A little old-fashioned: didn't move with the times. Many's the battle-royal we've waged! But I think I may claim to have been able to handle him!"
Considering him: weak eyes, harassed brow, peevish mouth; and remembering Nathaniel's dominant personality, the Inspector disbelieved him, but he did not press the matter. He thought the whole pack of them were lying, one way or another, some to shield others, some from fear. No sense in getting oneself bogged in a swamp of misstatements until he'd heard what the experts, busy in Nathaniel's room upstairs, had gleaned. He seemed, therefore, to accept Mottisfont's statements, and asked the inevitable question: "When you left the drawing-room, where did you go?"
He'd known what the answer would be, of course. Mottisfont had gone up to his room, to change for dinner, and had not come out of it again until he had joined the rest of the party in the drawing-room.
The Inspector dismissed him, suppressing a sigh. Alibis were the bane of a detective's life, but he felt he would have welcomed one now. Gave one something to catch hold of, in a manner of speaking. You might have a chance of disproving an alibi: more of a chance, at any rate, than of disproving that these people had all been in their own rooms when Nathaniel was killed.
Consulting his notebook, the Inspector sent for Miss Dean.
As soon as Valerie came into the room, he saw that she was badly frightened. He did not think, critically surveying her, that she would be capable of stabbing anyone, but he thought she could be scared into talking, and felt more hopeful.
Her first words were an agitated disclaimer of any knowledge at all of the crime, and a demand to be allowed to go home at once. He told her that she had nothing to be afraid of, if she was quite frank with him.
She said: "But I don't know anything! I went straight up to my room to change. I never had any quarrel with Mr. Herriard! I can't think why you should want to question me. I should have thought Miss Herriard was the person who could tell you most. It was all her fault!"
"What makes you say that, miss?"
"Because it was! Of course, they'll all be furious with me for saying so, but I don't see why I should sacrifice myself to protect them! She wanted Mr. Herriard to let her have two thousand pounds to finance Mr. Roydon's play - though I'm absolutely certain he had nothing to do with it, because he's not that kind of person at all. But Paula was furious because Mr. Herriard didn't like Willoughby's play, silly old fool, and she had a simply frantic row with him, and absolutely slammed out of the room. Actually, it's a marvellous play, but Mr. Herriard was definitely moth-eaten, and he rather loathed it. Besides which he was in a stinking temper already, because I rather think he'd been having a row with Mr. Mottisfont."
"What about?" asked the Inspector quickly.
"Oh, I don't know, only Mr. Mottisfont was utterly sunk in gloom - of course, he's wet all round the edges too - and everything was ghastly, one way and another."
"In what way, miss?"
"Oh, on account of Stephen's being in one of his foul moods, and Paula doing nothing but stride about the place in a temper, and Mathilda Clare thinking herself very clever, and completely monopolising Stephen, just as though she were the only person who counted! And she isn't even moderately good-looking. In fact, she's haggish."
There did not seem to be very much to be made of this, although the disclosure that Paula wanted money for Roydon's play would bear looking into, the Inspector thought.
"The only person who's been in the least decent," pursued Valerie, now fairly launched on a flood of grievances, "is Uncle Joseph. I wish I'd never come, and I know my mother will be utterly livid when she hears what's happened! It isn't as if it was even any use my coming, because I never had a chance to get to know Mr. Herriard, which was the whole idea. I think he was a woman-hater."
"Indeed, miss? Didn't you and him get on together?"
"Well, we never had a chance, what with one thing and another. I must say, I thought he was frightfully rude, but Stephen was just about as tactless as he could be, goodness knows why! and Paula would keep on about Willoughby's play, when anyone could see it was only making Mr. Herriard worse."
She continued in this strain for several minutes, leaving the Inspector with the impression that the household contained few, if any, persons who would have been unwilling to have murdered Nathaniel.
This somewhat irresponsible testimony was contradicted by Maud, who when summoned to the morning-room came in with the deliberate tread of all stout persons, and betrayed neither alarm nor any particular interest.
Maud baffled the Inspector. She answered readily any questions put to her, but her face told him nothing, and she seemed either to be very stupid or very much too clever. She said that she had been in her bedroom from the time she had left the drawing-room until she had returned to it, just before dinner. The Inspector had expected that: it would be quite a shock, he reflected bitterly, if any of these people said anything else. Maud said that no doubt her husband could corroborate her statement, since he had been in his dressing-room, next door. The Inspector nodded, and asked her if there had been much unpleasantness in the house.