he added. âWe wonât keep you longer than we can help, Mrs. Molyneux.â
âIâm very sorry to have to trouble you at all, madam,â added the superintendent. Jeanie had seen him in Handleston. He was very tall, spare and saturnine, with deep lines in his cheeks and a bristling dark moustache. Without his cap he looked very human and intelligent. The other policeman, burly, red-faced and bald, conformed to a more usual type.
âYou canât help it,â murmured Agnes.
She looked at Sir Henry, who responded with a melancholy, sympathetic smile. Finister made a respectful pause, fiddling with his pencil and looking at Agnes with dark lively eyes more adapted to express a sardonic than a sympathetic humour.
âMay we have your account/â he asked gently, âof what happened this afternoon?â
âWhat happened?â echoed Agnes, looking frightened. âBut I donât know what happened!â
âI mean,â the superintendent corrected himself, âthe course of events from your own point of view. I understand you first made the discovery?â
âYes.â
âWhat took you to the orchard?â
âI went to remind my husband to come in and receive the guests. The Handleston Field Clubâour guestsâhad arrived. My husband was working in the orchard and wanted to go on as long as possible. But of course when our guests came inââ
âI see. When did the Field Club actually arrive?â Agnes looked vague.
âI donât know. I was in my room, dressing. They were in the old kitchen when I came down at a quarter-past three. At least, Bates said so.â
âIt was ten minutes to three when we came in to Cleedons and went to the old kitchens,â said Sir Henry Blundell.
âOh, had you been there all that time, Sir Henry? I do hope Tamsin or somebody looked after you properly! Robert was very anxious to get his fruit-trees done, or he would have been with you.â
She began to cry helplessly. There was a pause, while Sir Henry looked out of the window, Finister gazed with grave attention at the fire-place, and Jeanie strove to console Agnes and stem her tears. The burly policeman with the notebook looked with rosy concern at the two ladies.Â
âIâm sorry!â said Agnes at last. âOnly, it seems so dreadful now to think, if he had come in earlier, he would have beenâthis wouldnât have happened.â
Superintendent Finister made the smallest sympathetic sad grimace. Many things were dreadful, it seemed to say, in this dreadful world: dreadfulness was almost the order of nature.
âWhat time was it when you went out, Mrs. Molyneux?â
âOh, what time did I say I left my room? At a quarter-past three. And I justâI just spoke to a few peopleâI mean, to one or two of the servantsâI mean, to Bates, to ask if the Field Club had come, andâand he said they had, and I went out to tell my husband.â
âAt twenty-past three, then, at latest?â
Agnes looked dubious and frightened, as though time were a spectre and haunted her. She had been punctual enough in the old days at school. But life at Cleedons, reflected Jeanie, revolved so much around her will and her convenience that she had grown out of the habit of watching the clock.
âWell, perhaps. I suppose so! Or a little later...â
â About twenty-past three,â murmured the burly policeman, writing.
âAnd then?â
âIâI went to the orchard.â
Agnesâs voice faltered, and her eyes widened and seemed to grow dark, approaching horror.
âYes. What way did you go?â
Finisterâs steady voice had a bracing effect.
âI went out of the Tower door and across the lawn and out through the gate by the garage. Across the lane. The orchard gateâs just there. IâI saw a kind of movement in the orchard. I canât explain! A sort of movement,
Learning to Kill: Stories