At last there came the sound for which they had been waiting—a sharp knock at the door. At the same moment the passionate weeping of a woman reached them—"Oh, my lady! my lady!"
"Pirnie—Lady Anne's maid." Bruce Cardyn got up. "The woman is absolutely useless. That is all she can do—she simply cries all the time. Dr. Spencer is at the door, think."
The inspector motioned him to wait.
"Yes, Dr. Spencer is coming to report to us. But first I must put one question to you, Mr. Cardyn. You were the first at the window, you say. Of the other four people in the room was there anyone else close to you all the time, so that you can confidently say 'This one could not have been the murderer.'"
"They all seemed to be close to me all the time," Cardyn said ruefully. "Pressing me hard, so that I could scarcely move, you understand. But I could not say that any one of them was by me all the time. The one who seemed to be perhaps the longest—"
"Yes?" The inspector looked at him closely.
"Well, it was, I think, Mr. John Daventry," Bruce finished. "But I could not be certain of all the time. Still, he was beside me shouting to the man below a good deal of the time, it seems to me. At the end, when I turned after hearing the groan, I recollect pushing Soames, the butler, back. But I do not remember where Mr. Daventry was then."
"John Daventry—um!" mused the inspector. "The heir, the most obvious trail, but is it the right one?"
"I don't know," Bruce Cardyn confessed. "He doesn't look like a murderer, but—"
"No one ever does look like a murderer until he is found out," the inspector said sententiously. "My experience is that people who look like murderers may be great philanthropists or prominent politicians, but they never commit murders. Well, doctor"—as Cardyn opened the door and Dr. Spencer came into the room—"what have you to say to us?"
The doctor was a capable-looking man of middle age, with a pleasant professional manner. Just now his face was white and disturbed.
"Us!" he repeated, raising his eyebrows as he glanced at Cardyn.
"Ah, yes! I had forgotten. Now this must be strictly in confidence, doctor. Mr. Bruce Cardyn, a member of one of the best-known firms of private detectives, is here at Lady Anne's own request, acting as her secretary, in order to discover, if possible, her secret enemy in the house."
The doctor stared at him.
"But what—I don't understand—Do you mean that Lady Anne—?"
"Feared that what happened this afternoon might happen?" the inspector finished. "Exactly! But you must understand that this must go no further, doctor. Mr. Cardyn must remain the secretary to the rest of the world. Now, what have you to tell us?"
"Nothing you do not know already," the doctor said slowly. "Leaving technicalities to the inquest, Lady Anne died of the wound caused by the dagger which was still in it when I came. It penetrated to the heart and death must have taken place within a few minutes. The blow must have been one of great force and I should say struck by a person who knew just where to strike. That is all I can tell you, inspector, and it will not help you much, fear."
"One never knows," the inspector said enigmatically. "One question, Dr. Spencer—you say 'a powerful blow.' Could it have been struck by a woman?"
"It depends upon the woman," the doctor said after a pause. "But, yes—I should say that in these days of athletic women most of them are as capable of striking hard as a man. But you surely do not think that—that a woman—"
"I am not thinking anything at present," Inspector Furnival interrupted. "I am trying to find out the truth, doctor."
"Quite so, I understand that. But there is one thing that has struck me might be a means of ascertaining the truth." The doctor laid his hat and stick on the table. "I am a bit of a criminologist myself, and in reading both real and imaginary accounts of crime it has struck me how very often finger-prints have been the means of tracking down the criminal. Now in this case, surely the dagger—the handle I mean, must bear the marks of—"
Something like a faint smile flitted momentarily over the inspector's face.
"I have not neglected what certainly does look like an obvious clue, doctor. But unfortunately so many people have handled the dagger, incidentally, Lady Anne herself, that I am afraid that it will not carry us much further."
"Ah, well! It is your job not mine." The doctor took up his hat. "I am more grieved than can say that such a thing should have occurred. Lady Anne was one of my oldest patients and I shall miss her more than I can realize at present. And I trust that so cruel a crime will not long go unavenged. Well, if there is nothing more that I can tell you, inspector—we shall meet at the inquest to-morrow."
When the door had closed behind him the inspector made a rapid note in his book.
"Not very enlightening, that gentleman, now for Mr. John Daventry!"
John Daventry kept them waiting for some little time. The inspector occupied himself in studying his notes and adding a few words, his face gloomy and abstracted. Bruce Cardyn did not move. He was going over and over again the tragedy of this afternoon. Who could be guilty? Was it one of the four people in the room with him, or could it possibly have been, as the inspector suggested, some outsider? The face at the window too! Rack his brains as he would he could think of no explanation of this, to him the most inexplicable feature of the whole affair. With all the precautions he had taken it would have seemed an actual impossibility that anyone should have got up to the window of Lady Anne's room without being discovered at once. Yet the thing had happened.
John Daventry's face still bore evident marks of disturbance when at last he appeared.
"You asked for me, inspector?"
The inspector pointed to a chair next to Bruce Cardyn.
"Do you mind sitting there, Mr. Daventry?"
"Oh, I can't sit down, thanks."
Yet under the inspector's compelling eye, John Daventry walked over and laid his hand on the chair indicated.
"As a matter of fact you were lucky to catch me at all. The car will be round in a minute to take me to Daventry Keep. I want to break the news to my mother myself."
The inspector's hand still pointed to the chair.
"I think not, Mr. Daventry. You must let some one else break the news to them at the Keep. Don't you understand that no one—no one may leave this house without my permission?"
John Daventry stared at him.
"No one may leave this house without your permission!" he repeated contemptuously. "My good man, are you going out of your mind? I know that you police have a very exalted idea of your own powers. But really—"
The inspector pushed back his chair and stood up.
"You do not seem to comprehend at all the gravity of the situation, Mr. Daventry. A foul and terrible murder has been committed in this house this afternoon, and up till now we have entirely failed to trace the guilty one. In these circumstances every one of the five in the room must be suspect. All of them are under observation and should any one of them attempt to leave the house without my permission, he—or she—will at once be placed under arrest."
"I can't believe it!" That curious sickly pallor was stealing over John Daventry's face again. "You can't seriously think that one of us stabbed Aunt Anne? The very idea would be ludicrous if it were not so tragic."
"What do you think yourself, Mr. Daventry?" The Ferret's eyes had never been more gimletlike.
"I can't think." John Daventry ran his hands