"— and they got here about lunch-time. During lunch, Mr. Stannard started talking about the day your father… died." Ricky took the pipe out of his mouth. "Blast his impudence!" Ricky shouted. "I honestly don’t think it was impudence." "No? It always upsets mother, though." "You see," Jenny frowned, "Mr. Stannard said to Aunt Cicely something like, I’m afraid we've met before, Lady Fleet' Aunt Cicely laughed and said, That's not very complimentary.' Then Mr. Stannard said, 'Forgive me: I only meant I was at Fleet House on the day your unfortunate husband met his death.'" "What did mother say?"
"Well, Ruth Callice tells me it wasn't a very merry lunch." "Damn him!"
"Ricky, do you remember or did you ever hear of any 'Stannard' being there at the time?" "No. Never."
"Nor I. In anything I've ever heard, or — read."
"But what is all this?" demanded Ricky. His pipe had gone out, and he put it down on the table. "You're as fretted as though you'd seen a whole crowd of ghosts. My governor's been dead for twenty years. It's a pity about mother; I'd like to wring Stannard's neck; but a little tact and well smooth it over."
"We can't smooth over the police," Jenny said.
She rose to her feet and appealed to Martin.
"I–I haven't said anything about what Sir Henry told us yesterday. I mean, at Willaby's. Partly because I was afraid of the rumpus, and partly because I never can tell whether he's serious or not"
Jenny turned to Ricky, and nodded towards the closed door of the other parlour.
"The police are here," she added. "They're in that room now. I saw them go in when I came here. There's a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard, and the other man — well, they call him the Old Maestro. They're here to investigate. Sir Henry thinks your father was murdered."
The word, on Jenny's lips, sounded incongruous.
"Nonsense!" said Ricky. "He got vertigo and pitched over the parapet"
"Yes; but suppose someone did kill him?"
"Look here! Wait a minute!"
"I want to know who was at the house that day," Jenny went on, "and where everybody was when it happened. I was only five years old then. Ricky, how well do you remember?"
The other tousled up his hair, digging the fingers in.
"Some parts of it very plainly, and others not at all. Because they get mixed up with different years. I was barely twelve myself. Besides, I didn't see it happen. I was in the back garden with Miss Upton. She had a head-lock on me."
"Ricky, please do be serious!"
“I am serious! Can't you remember Miss Upton the governess, with a build like Sandow and yet that refined la-di-da accent coming out of her mouth?"
"Yes. I remember. She was with your family four years."
"Well, I mean quite literally she had a wrestling-hold on me. Because I wanted to watch the hunt go past" Ricky paused. "You know, Jenny-angel, this subject…"
"Yes! It's been taboo in our families for all these years. Let's tear it apart!"
"But why?"
"Have you thought," asked Jenny, and looked at Martin, "what the upset of a police-investigation would be in your house? And my house?"
Clearly Ricky hadn't Up to this moment, it was clear, he had regarded the matter as nothing very important The governor's been dead for twenty years; we've forgotten it; why bother?’ Such might have been his philosophy. Now he sat down heavily in what had been Jenny's chair by the table, and picked up his dead pipe. The sun's glow was dimming to a pale, clear after-light through the open door to the road.
"Tell it," Jenny almost whispered. "Tell it!"
"It was October or November. I'm sure of that, because the trees were mostly bare and there were leaves on the ground. Also because they'd given me a new cricket-bat; and the governor asked what I wanted with a new one when the season was over; but cricket has no season for you at that age. There was some kind of special treat promised for tea, because a number of people were to be there.
"As I say, Miss Upton and I were in the back garden. Near the house, I think. There was a red sky to the west, with the bare branches of trees up against it. It wasn't very cold, and there was a clean autumny-tanging kind of wind. Then we heard the Ascombe Hunt
"We'd heard faint noises before. But nothing to the uproar like this. We couldn't see anything, because the house was between us and the road. But the hounds were ding-dong and hell-for-leather on a breast-high scent I knew they'd broken out of Black Hanger and across Guideman's Field just back of this pub here, and I guessed they were running to view.
"I started to make a bee-line for the front of the house. Miss Upton grabbed my arm. She was afraid I would run across and get among the field in front of somebody's horse, which had happened once or twice before. I kicked up a devil of a row until she got a head-lock on me. Then she said: "Richard, you may go to the front if I keep hold of your hand."
‘I said yes, and meant it. We started round the north side-of the house, on the broad gravel drive. Then we heard a… well a shout"
Ricky paused.
"I didn't think of anything being wrong, or even connect it with the house particularly. I knew my governor was up on the roof, trying to follow the hunt through a very powerful pair of field-glasses. As he always did when he had the rheumatics and it was agony to sit on a horse. But—
"Well, just as we were nearly to the front of the house, where there's a tap for the garden-hose, I distinctly heard Dr. Laurier's voice."
Jenny interposed. She had crept into a chair opposite Ricky, both of them with their elbows on the table.
"Was it old Dr. Laurier?" she asked. "Or the Dr. Laurier we have now?"
Ricky made a fussed gesture with the pipe. His eyes were hypnotized.
"Old Dr. Laurier, with the beard. The hounds were yelling, and there was the hallo-forrard. Only the hunt-servants had followed through the wood. Most of the field had ridden round; you could see a flash of pink coats coming, round the edge of Black Hanger, and hear the horses. But I distinctly remember Dr. Laurier's voice saying, 'Get the table-cloth out of the hall.’
"In the front hall there used to be a piece of tapestry, worked with what I then considered very funny-looking knights; they had it on a table. That's the most distinct thing of the lot: 'Get the table-cloth out of the hall.'
"Then we got round to the front terrace. There was my governor, lying face-down on the flagstones, looking just as usuaclass="underline" except that old Dr. Laurier, with the beard, was spreading the tapestry-piece over his head and I think his shoulders.
"I was so excited I looked across the road first there were two men sitting on the roof-gables of this pub, and the hunt streaming beyond. Then there was something: I don't know what Dr. Laurier straightened up. Your grandmother was standing beside him. When you're a kid, you never really know there's something wrong until you see the look on their faces. Dr. Laurier said, 'Miss Upton, take the boy away from here.' I could feel Miss Upton shaking through all her fifteen stone, and all of a sudden I felt as frightened as hell without knowing why. She turned me round and took me back. Then…"
Again Ricky paused. He put the pipe into his mouth and chewed at its stem.
"On my word of honour," he declared in that same hypnotized tone, and dropped the pipe again, "I haven't thought of this for years. Maybe you jogged it into my bead. Maybe it's sheer imagination. But I have an impression that I looked up."
‘Towards the roof?"
"No, no! I didn't connect the governor with anything like 'death' or all the terms you might imply. It was a vague kind of wonder what he was doing down here instead of up there. I looked at an upper window, I think to the right of the front door. And I saw.."
There was a sharp rapping on the inside of the open door to the road.