"Darling Ermyntrude, it isn't your shame at all. You don't mind my brandishing Gladys's shame, do you?"
"I can assure you, madam, I shall, so far as I am able, conduct my inquiries with the utmost discretion," said the Inspector.
"Yes, I wish I may see you!" retorted Ermyntrude tartly. "And if you're going to interview that - that - well, never mind what, but if you're going to see that girl, you can tell her that she can sing for her five hundred pounds, for she won't get it out of me, not after this!"
"Is that the sum that was demanded from Mr. Carter, madam?"
"Yes, you may well look surprised!" said Ermyntrude. "And the young man coming up here, as bold as brass, to blackmail my husband in the middle of a dinner-party, and him having the face to tell me as cool as you please that he'd have to ask me for five hundred to get rid of this Gladys with!"
"Mr. Carter told you what he wanted this sum for?" said the Inspector incredulously.
"Well, he had to, or I wouldn't have given it to him."
The Inspector coughed. "No doubt that was the cause of your disagreement with Mr. Carter, madam?"
"Of course it was!" replied Ermyntrude. "Well, I ask you, wouldn't you be a bit upset if you found that your husband was carrying on like a Mormon all over the town, and expecting you to provide for a pack of - well, I don't want to be coarse, so we'll leave it at that!"
The Inspector was staring at her. "Yes, madam, I'm bound to say I would. But - but - did you tell Mr. Carter you would give him this money?"
"Well, what else was I to do?" demanded Ermyntrude. "Faults I may have, and I don't deny it, but thank God no one's ever said I was mean!"
A new train of thought had been set up in the Inspector's mind. He said in a suspiciously mild voice: "I don't think I need to ask you any more questions at present, madam, except what you were doing at the time of Mr. Carter's death - just a matter of routine!" he added, perceiving a spark in Ermyntrude's eye.
"How do I know when he died? What are you trying to get at?"
Judging from the evidence I've heard so far, madam, and the time of Mr. White's phone call to the police station, Mr. Carter was shot at about five minutes to five."
"It makes no difference to me when he was shot," said Ermyntrude. "I've been lying down the whole afternoon on my bed."
"And you, miss?" said the Inspector, turning suddenly towards Mary.
"I came downstairs just before my cousin set out to go to the Dower House. When he left, I went out to get some tomatoes from one of the hot-houses."
"Where is this hot-house, miss?"
"By the kitchen-garden, on the other side of the house."
"I take it you heard nothing?"
"No, nothing at all."
"I see, miss." The Inspector shut his notebook. "I should like to interview the servants, if you please."
"Certainly," Mary replied. "But only the butler and his wife, and the under-housemaid are in. The rest of them went out immediately after luncheon. If you'll come into the morning-room, I'll send the butler to you at once."
The Inspector thanked her, and followed her to the morning-room. Ermyntrude, after commenting acridly on the effrontery of policemen who behaved as though the place belonged to them, allowed herself to be persuaded to go into the drawing-room.
When Mary came back to the hall she found Hugh alone there. "I think I ought to clear out," he said. "But if there's anything I can do, you know you've only to tell me."
"Oh, don't go!" said Mary, who was feeling a good deal shaken. "I can't cope with them! It's like being in a madhouse, and when that awful Prince gets back, it'll be worse. Wasn't Aunt Ermy ghastly? And as for that little beast, Vicky, I'd like to wring her neck! She deliberately dragged Wally's affair with Gladys Baker into it! The one thing we wanted to keep quiet about!"
"I don't think you could have done that, though I admit I was a trifle startled when Vicky flung the bomb into our midst. She seems to have recovered from her first shock."
"Of course she's recovered! She's probably enjoying all the sensation. But, Hugh, what are we going to do? Who did kill Wally? And how am I to stop Aunt Ermy making foolish admissions?"
"I shouldn't think you could do that," said Hugh frankly. "You might have a shot at quelling Vicky, though. As for who killed Wally, I haven't the faintest idea, unless Vicky was right, and it was Baker."
"Oh, I hope it was!" Mary said, pressing her hands to her temples.
Hugh lifted his brows. "Like that, is it? Not keeping anything back from the police, are you, Mary? Because, if so, don't."
"No, no, of course I'm not! Only we've been living in a sort of atmosphere of drama, and repressions, and I expect I've let it get on my nerves. Hugh, couldn't it have been an accident?"
"Hardly," he replied. "The only persons who could conceivably have been shooting at rabbits in the Dower House grounds - five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, too! - are White, or his son. Well, it wasn't White, and I don't see why it should have been his son."
"Where was Alan?"
"I don't know. Not present."
"Anyway, there isn't the slightest reason why he should want to kill Wally," said Mary, with a sigh.
Vicky came out of the drawing-room just then, with a large box of chocolates, which she offered both to Mary and Hugh. When they declined this form of refreshment, she perched herself on the back of the sofa, with her feet on the cushioned seat, and laid the box across her knees. "Poor darling Ermyntrude is a bit exhausted," she remarked, selecting a truffle from the box. "Myself, I thought the scene was too long for her, and much too heavy."
"Need you talk as though we were taking part in theatricals?" snapped Mary.
"Yes, because we're bound to be, with Ermyntrude and me in the thick of it. We simply can't help it, darling. Particularly Ermyntrude, because she always wanted to play in heavy tragedy, and no one ever gave her the chance, so you can't blame her for letting herself go now."
"It's so false!" Mary exclaimed. "You know as well as I do that she didn't care tuppence about Wally!"
"No, I do think she had got awfully sick of him," agreed Vicky, choosing another chocolate from the box.
"Very well then, all this pretence of tragedy is in the worst of bad taste!"
"Don't be silly, darling: if she still cared about Wally I don't think she'd do it. I'm not sure, mind you, but I rather believe not. And after all, you can't very well expect her to go all hard-boiled, and let everyone know she doesn't care a bit."
"I don't expect it, but a little reticence, and dignity…"
Vicky raised her eyes from the chocolates. "Oh, Mary, you must be completely addled! Why on earth should poor Ermyntrude suddenly become reticent and dignified, when that isn't her line at all? She couldn't put over an act like that, which is why I think it's so right of her just to play herself, if you know what I mean."
"Leaving your mother out of the discussion," said Hugh, "what part are you proposing to play?"
"It depends," replied Vicky. "How hellish! I've struck a hard chocolate which is wholly inedible. What on earth will I do with it?"
"I wish you'd stop eating chocolates!" said Mary crossly. "Is this quite the moment?"
Vicky wrinkled her brow. "Well, I didn't have any tea, and quite truthfully I don't see anything particularly irreverent about it. In fact, darling, you're being fairly fraudulent yourself, when you come to consider it.
What's more, the whole situation seems to me so awful that if you're going to make it worse, by putting over a pious act of your own, life will become definitely unbearable."
"I'm sorry if I sounded artificially pious," replied Mary. "I suppose you feel that you helped to make things more bearable by telling that policeman all about Baker?"
"I wouldn't wonder. I get very brilliant in my bath, and I had a bath before I came down, and I decided that if you've got a dissolute secret which is practically bound to come to light, you'd much better be the first person to mention it. Moreover," she added, eyeing the chocolates with her head on one side, "it took the Inspector's mind off me for the moment, which I particularly wanted to do."