Hilda regarded her stonily and said nothing.
“Is that right?” Sands asked her sharply.
“Yeah, it’s right,” Hilda said. “Except about getting in her way. I was just putting away some clean tea towels. After that I went up to my room to put on my other uniform.”
“And to fuss yourself up a bit,” Mrs. Hogan put in.
“What time was that, Hilda?”
“I guess about a quarter after six.”
“See anyone in the hall on your way up?”
“Her.” She pointed at Jane. “She was just going into her room.”
Aspasia sat up, stiff and dignified. “Hilda, I realize you entertain certain malicious thoughts about—”
“But I was going into my room!” Jane protested. “I was going in to look for something, something” — her voice dropped to a whisper — “terribly important.”
“And what was it?” Sands asked.
“I can’t tell you here.” Her voice was sweet but obstinate. “Anyway, I’d been in the drawing room with Paul when I suddenly thought of something so I went up to my room to find out if I was right.”
Prye said dryly, “Yes, she was talking to me in the drawing room from the time that Revel went into the library with you, Inspector. I was aware too that she had conceived an idea, but she didn’t confide in me.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Shane said with a sigh. “I haven’t the faintest trace of an alibi, I’m afraid. Between six and half past is a very difficult time to account for any day. Most of us wash and dress and things like that because we have dinner at a quarter to seven. You see?”
The inspector saw. The rest looked rather relieved. Mrs. Hogan and Hilda were sent out to the kitchen to salvage the dinner.
Sands looked pointedly at Revel, who was standing beside the mantel. “You’re next, Mr. Revel.”
Revel smiled. “Well, after I left you, Inspector, I went up to the room Mrs. Shane kindly allotted to me and began to unpack. That was nearly six, I think. I suppose I spent twenty-five minutes or so in there doing various things. Then I rang for Jackson and asked him which room was being occupied by Dinah. I wanted to have a talk with her.”
“That’s correct, sir,” Jackson told the inspector.
“I rapped on her door,” Revel went on, “and called to her but she didn’t answer. So I went back to my room and smoked a cigarette.”
Sands turned to Dinah. “Did you hear Mr. Revel calling you?”
She was sitting at one end of the chesterfield, her chin resting on her hand. She was staring at the floor and did not look up. Nora moved across the room and put her hand on Dinah’s shoulder.
“Dinah, did you hear George rap on your door?”
She raised her eyes, a little surprised to find everyone watching her.
“I heard him,” she said in a tight voice. “I heard him.”
“Thank you, Dinah,” Revel said dryly.
She glanced over at him.
“Don’t thank me. I know why you rapped on my door and called my name. You’d just come upstairs after killing Dennis and you wanted some sort of alibi. With that perverted humor of yours, you thought it would be funny to have me give you an alibi because Dennis loved me. We were going to be married.”
“For God’s sake shut up,” Revel said. “Say what you want to about me but don’t humiliate yourself.”
“Have you any basis for such an accusation, Mrs. Revel?” Sands asked her.
“I know him,” Dinah cried. “I know what he’s capable of.”
Jackson said smoothly, “Mr. Revel was in his room when I came upstairs. He had been unpacking. He asked me where Mrs. Revel’s room was. I told him, and I saw him go down the hall and rap.”
Dinah was gazing at him bitterly. “You’re like the rest of them. You’d slit a throat for money.”
“Oh, I think you’re horrible, Dinah!” Jane exclaimed.
The room was very still. Sands had withdrawn from the scene and was standing by the door watching them all with an ironic half smile.
A blush was beginning to spread over Jane’s face. “What I mean is, you really shouldn’t accuse people, Dinah, just because you don’t like them.”
“I haven’t begun yet,” Dinah said slowly. “You can squawk when your turn comes.”
“My turn?” Jane looked pale and thoroughly frightened but she spoke with a show of defiance: “If Duncan were here you couldn’t talk to me like that!”
“If Duncan were here,” Sands interrupted softly, “I wouldn’t be. But he isn’t and I am.”
Dinah walked over to the window. Jane began to whimper into Aspasia’s far-from-capacious bosom.
“I apologize for my nieces’ manners,” Mrs. Shane said to the inspector. “They are both young.”
“She’s twenty-nine!” Jane wailed.
Sands looked at her as he thought Duncan might have looked under similar circumstances and she ducked her head back to Aspasia.
Surprised and pleased with himself, Sands turned to Mrs. Shane very graciously. “And what were you doing, Mrs. Shane, between six and half past?”
Mrs. Shane looked thoughtful. As far as she knew she was just doing what she always did at that time, lying down, then washing, changing her clothes, and combing her hair.
“Alone?”
“Alone,” she replied, “except when Aspasia came in and asked me what time it was. Her clock had stopped. I told her it was six twenty-five.”
Sands’ eyes switched to Aspasia. “And then?”
“I went back to my room and set my clock,” Aspasia said, twitching her chin away from Jane’s hair. “And just as I was setting it I had the most frightful feeling.”
“The inspector wants facts not feelings,” her sister reminded her briskly.
“Both,” Sands said.
Aspasia cast a triumphant glance around the room. “You see? Feelings are important. I finished dressing as quickly as I could and went downstairs. In the hall I met Jackson. He was coming from the basement and he looked frightfully upset.”
Jackson frowned at her. Me upset? he thought. I didn’t turn a hair.
“He wouldn’t tell me anything except that someone was dead. Naturally I thought it was Jane—”
Jane’s head came up with a jerk. “Naturally!” she yelled. “Why? Oh dear, you mean you feel that something is going to happen to me? O God! I want protection. I won’t stay here another—”
Sands tried the Duncan look again, without result this time. He waited helplessly while Aspasia poured reassurances into Jane’s ear. Nora saved the situation by beginning to scream out the details of her actions:
“I WAS IN MY ROOM UNTIL ABOUT SIX-TEN. THEN I WENT DOWNSTAIRS AND TALKED TO DR. PRYE IN THE DRAWING ROOM UNTIL I HEARD ABOUT DENNIS BEING SHOT.”
Jane was quieter now.
“All right,” Sands said. “Now about Mr. Williams himself. I want to know everything he did from the time he came back to this house. Who let him in?”
“I did,” Jackson said. “It was about half an hour before Dr. Pyre and Mr. Revel arrived, about four-thirty, I’d say. He had his two bags with him and gave them to me to take up to his room. He said he’d changed his mind about going back to Montreal, and he felt he could do some good by staying here. I took his bags up to the third floor, hung up his suits, and came down. He was standing in the hall on the second floor. He told me he was going down to practice some billiard shots. The last I saw of him alive was when he went down the steps. That was nearly five o’clock.”
“What was he doing on the second floor?” Sands asked.
“I don’t know,” Jackson said.
Without taking her eyes from the window, Dinah said tonelessly, “He came to my room and told me he had come back because he didn’t want me to go through everything alone.”