"Fraid so," Guest replied. "It'll mean, unless I'm much mistaken, that no one will be catching that three-ten up to town. Think you can cope with the women?"
Finch gave a discreet cough. "If I might make a suggestion, sir, I could serve luncheon quietly in the dining-room now, for the visitors."
"It seems rather ghoulish," said Dinah dubiously. "Still — I suppose, one's got to eat, and anyway it would get Lola and Camilla out of the way."
"Has Lola come down yet?" inquired Guest.
A reluctant grin destroyed Miss Fawcett's gravity. "Yes, she has. I don't want to be flippant, but — but she's being rather good value. Only, of course, very trying for Fay. She seems to have made up her mind to be arrested for the crime. Camilla's merely hysterical. What I can't make out is where Geoffrey has got to. There's no sign of him, and it's already half past one."
Halliday and the doctor came back at that moment, and Dinah broke off to conduct Dr Raymond into the drawing-room.
Fay was seated beside Mrs. Twining on thee sofa, her hands clenched nervously together in her lap, her eyes unnaturally wide, as though she had caught a glimpse of some horror. Mrs. Twining, on the other hand, was as composed as ever, if a little white. Camilla Halliday was wrenching at a handkerchief, saying over and over again:
"I can't believe it! I simply can't believe it!" Lola, seated in a high-backed arm-chair, was looking bright-eyed and heroic. As the doctor came in, she was saying with great complacency: "For me this is an affair extremely terrible. It is known that the General — whom, however, I forgive, for I am a very good Christian, I assure you — has been most cruel to me. Certainly the police must ask themselves if it is not I who have stabbed the General."
Fay gave a shiver, but her fixed stare into space did not waver.
"Here's Dr Raymond," Dinah said, taking charge of her situation. "Mrs. Halliday, Lola — will you come into the dining-room now? Dr Raymond would like to see my sister alone, and — and — I think Finch is serving lunch."
"Lunch!" Camilla cried wildly. "How can you be so awful? I should be sick if I had to look at food!"
Mrs. Twining got up. "Nonsense!" she said. "You must try not to let your feelings run away with you, Mrs. Halliday, and to help as much as you can by behaving quite normally." She exchanged a somewhat forced smile with Dr Raymond, and led the way to the door.
Before she had time to open it, a cry from Lola stopped her. "Ah, Dios!" Lola exclaimed, and pointed dramatically to the window.
Geoffrey stood there, looking hot and dishevelled and nerve-ridden.
"Geoffrey! Where on earth have you been?" said Dinah involuntarily.
He passed a hand across his brow. "What's that got to do with you?" he said. "I don't know. Miles away." He became aware of their eyes staring at him, and said sharply: "What are you all looking at me for? It's nothing to do with you where I've been, is it?"
Dr Raymond stepped up to him, and took him by the arm. "Steady, young man. You're a bit over-done. Sit down. Something rather shocking has happened. Your father has been — well, murdered, I'm afraid."
Geoffrey looked blankly up at him. "What? Father's been murdered?" He blinked rather dazedly. "Are you going potty? I — you don't mean it, do you?" He read the answer in the doctor's face, and suddenly got up. "Good God!" he said. His mouth began to quiver; to their dismay he started to giggle, in helpless, lunatic gusts.
"Wells," Camilla gasped. "I must say!"
"Stop that!" Raymond said harshly. "Stop at once, Geoffrey: do you hear me? Now control yourself! Quite quiet!"
"Oh, I c-can't help it! Oh God, d-don't you's-see horn, f-funny it is?" wailed Geoffrey. "Your f, faces! Oh, d-don't make me laugh!"
Dinah vanished from the room, to reappear in a few moments with the brandy decanter and a glass. The doctor and Mrs. Twining were standing over Geoffrey, who had grown quieter, but who was still shaking with idiotic mirth.
Dr Raymond looked up. "Ah, thanks. Not too much — yes, that's enough. Now Geoffrey, drink this." He put the glass to Geoffrey's lips, and almost forced the spirit down his throat.
Geoffrey coughed and spluttered. The laughter died. He looked round the room, and moistened his lips.
"Sorry. I don't know what happened to me," he said in an exhausted voice. "Hul — hullo, Aunt Julia! What are you doing here? Who murdered Father?"
"We don't know, my dear," Mrs. Twining said quietly. "Dinah, if you'll take Mrs. Halliday and Miss de Silva into lunch, I think I'll stay here till Geoffrey feels more himself."
Dinah promptly held open the door for the other two to pass out. Under her compelling gaze they did so, but once in the hall Camilla gave a shudder, and declared her inability to pass the study-door. She was with difficulty induced to overcome this shrinking, and entered the dining-room in the end grasping Dinah's arm.
Both Guest and Halliday were seated at the table. Guest was stolidly eating cold beef and Halliday, opposite to him, was making a pretence of eating. They rose as the three women entered the room, and Guest pulled out a chair from the table. "That's right," he said. "Come and sit down, Mrs. Halliday."
Camilla disregarded him, but made a clutch at her husband. "Oh, Basil, isn't it awful? I feel absolutely frightful! What will the police do? Will they want to see me?"
Basil Halliday removed her hand from his coat sleeve. "There's nothing for you to feel frightful about, Camilla. It hasn't got anything to do with you. Sit down, and pull yourself together."
Camilla burst into tears. "You n-needn't talk to me in that unkind way!" she sobbed. "You don't seem to realise how upset I am. I mean, I was only with him a little while ago. What will the police ask me? I don't know anything about it!"
"Of course not. We neither of us know anything. All we have to do is to answer any questions perfectly truthfully," said Halliday, putting her into a chair. "That's right, isn't it, Guest?"
"I should think so," Guest replied. "Can't say I know much about the procedure."
Miss de Silva eyed Camilla austerely. "I do not find that there is reason for you to weep," she announced. "ll I do so that is what may be easily understood, since Sir Arthur was the father of Geoffrey. But I do not weep. because I have great courage, and, besides, I do not choose that my eyes should be red. There will bc reporters, and one must think of these things, for it is a very good thing to have one's picture in all the papers though not, I assure you, with red eyes."
This speech had the effect of stopping Camilla's rather gusty sobs. She said: "I can't think how you can be so callous! And please don't ask me to eat anything, because I simply couldn't swallow a mouthful!"
"Just a little chicken, madam," said Finch soothingly at her elbow, and put a plate down before her.
Dinah had seated herself beside Stephen Guest, and was mechanically eating a morsel of chicken. It seemed curiously tasteless, and rather difficult to swallow. She felt as though she were partaking of lunch in an unpleasant nightmare, where everything was top syturvy, and familiar people said and did ridiculous things that surprised you even in your dream. She asked, "Have the police come?" and thought at once how odd that sounded, quite unreal, as unreal as the thought of Arthur, murdered in his own study. It was the sort of macabre thing that happened to other people, and was reported in the evening papers, making you wonder whatever they could be like who got themselves into such extraordinary cases. Things like this just didn't happen in one's own family. It was no good repeating to oneself that it had happened; one just couldn't realise it.
"Yes, they arrived about five minutes ago," Guest was saying. "Four of them. They're in the study now. They'll want to interview Fay first, I expect. Is she very upset?"