So long a silence followed this announcement that Inspector Grant presently said: "Are you still there, sir?"
"Yes, I'm here," Hemingway replied. "Where did you find this out?"
"When I left you, I went to Belgrave Square. It was the butler told me that Mr.. Poulton was flying to Paris for a business conference tomorrow morning. I asked him when he expected Mr.. Poulton to return, and he told me, tomorrow evening. As to that, I have my doubts!"
"Did you get on to Northolt?"
"Cinnteach! But I was too late, for the plane had taken off already. I have seen the chauffeur. He has had his orders since the day before yesterday."
"Has he also got orders to meet some plane tomorrow?"
"Ma seadh! But what does that prove? He may go to Northolt, and come away without his master, it seems to me! Would you have me apply for extradition?"
"No. Not a bit of use.. I haven't enough on him to have a hope of getting it."
"Ciod e so? Is there another that has as much motive for these murders?"
"That's what I don't know yet. You can take it from me that Big Business interests aren't going to be annoyed on the evidence I've got. You can go round to Poulton's office first thing in the morning, and check up on this conference story. Meanwhile, I'm getting a lot of funny ideas about this case. I have to keep telling myself that first thoughts are best. I'm staying here till Mrs. Haddington's sister turns up. You nip round to wherever it is Mr.. Sydney Butterwick hangs out - you've got the address, haven't you? Park Lane, or something - and get his story out of him. Unless you get something startling from him, you needn't show up again till tomorrow morning."
"And where," asked the Inspector politely, "will you be going yourself, Chief Inspector, when you leave Charles Street?"
Hemingway grinned. "Back to the Yard!"
"I will be seeing you there, then," said the Inspector.
"All right, Sandy. You're several kinds of silly ass, but, barring your habit of breathing that Gaelic at me, I don't know when I've had a sub I got on with better!"
"Moran taing!" said the Inspector.
A click indicated that he had replaced his receiver. Hemingway followed his example, mentally registering a vow to discover the meaning of this cryptic valediction at the earliest opportunity. He went into the hall, where one of his men was sitting. To him, he issued instructions to lock and seal the doors into Mrs. Haddington's bedroom and boudoir. The officer had scarcely reached the halflanding when the front-door bell rang. Forestalling Thrimby, who had retired to his underground fastness, Hemingway opened the door, and admitted into the house Miss Violet Pickhill, who bore all the appearance of one who had snatched up the first hat and coat that chanced to meet her eyes. Fumbling within the folds of the coat, she drew forth her pince-nez, on the end of a thin chain, and jabbed them on to her nose. Through them she subjected the Chief Inspector to a suspicious scrutiny. "Who may you be?" she demanded.
Hemingway announced himself, and was annoyed to detect a note of apology in his own voice.
"Disgusting!" said Miss Pickhill. She removed the pince-nez from her nose, and added in a milder tone: "I don't mean you, but to think it should have come to this! Well, I always knew Lily was heading for trouble! Time and again I've told her that her behaviour was enough to make my poor father turn in his grave, and now we see how right I was! Where's my niece?"
"Miss Haddington hasn't come in yet," said Hemingway. "The servants seem to think she went off to some party or other, but she's expected to come home for her dinner. Miss Birtley - Mrs. Haddington's secretary -"
"I know very well who Miss Birtley is!" interrupted Miss Pickhill. "She rang me up, and I thought the better of her for having done so! It showed a very proper spirit, whatever my sister may say! Not, of course," she corrected herself punctiliously, "that my sister can say anything now, for I will tell you at once that I am not a believer in this Spiritualism, and never shall be!"
At this point, and considerably to the Chief Inspector's relief, the taxi-driver created a diversion by appearing on the scene for the purpose of dumping a suitcase inside the hall,, and of collecting his just dues. Miss Pickhill groped in her capacious handbag, andd handed these to him, forestalling criticism by informing him that if he wanted to receive a more handsome gratuity he should not have put his fares up. She clinched the matter by adding that ifhe had anything to say he might address his remarks to Hemingway, whom she introduced to him under the title of "this policeman." The taxi-driver wisely decided to withdraw without uttering the expostulation trembling on his tongue, and Miss Pickhill, shutting the door on him, turned to Hemingway, and demanded to be put in possession of the facts of her sister's murder.
He took her into the library, and told her briefly that her sister had been strangled in her own boudoir. She ejaculated first that it was a judgment on her, and then commanded Hemingway to tell her who had perpetrated the deed. Rather to his surprise, she accepted without comment his reply, that he was unable to enlighten her. She said: "Well, I was saying only yesterday to Mr.. Broseley - he is our Vicar, and a most enlightened man! - that a woman without religion is like a ship without a rudder. I may say that he entirely agreed with me! We were not, of course, discussing my poor sister. Whatever I may have thought, I hope I am too loyal to discuss any of my family, even with dear Mr.. Broseley! But it all goes to show! From the moment she married Hubert Haddington - right against her father's wishes, I may say! - Lily (for call her Lilias I never would!) took a turn for the worse! My father always said - he had a very unconventional way of expressing himself, though a thorough Churchman! - that Hubert was a bad hat. Of course, Lily took after the Whalleys: there's no getting round that! My mother's people - not that I wish to say a word against them, but there's no denying that they were not Pickhills! My mother, naturally, was different, but I well recall hearing my dear father saying that her relations were some of them most uncongenial people. Quite irreligious, I fear, and with what my father used to call an eye to the main-chance. It was the same with Lily. As hard as nails! The only person she ever cared twopence for was my niece, and, as is always the way, she spoiled her atrociously! Often and often I've told her so, but you might as well have talked to a brick wall! And what has been the result? The child spends her whole life making up her face, and going to cocktail-parties, and my poor sister has been murdered! Of course, if he weren't dead already, I should have said that Mr.. SeatonCarew had done it!"
"Would you, madam?" said Hemingway, in a conversational tone which would not have deceived Inspector Grant for even the fraction of a second. "Now, I wonder what makes you say that?"
"I always trust my instinct," said Miss Pickhill darkly. "It's never at fault - never! The instant I clapped eyes on him I knew! A friend of Hubert Haddington's, I need hardly say! Pray do not ask me what his relationship with my unhappy sister was! That is something I prefer not to think about! Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil!"
"Very proper, madam!" approved Hemingway. "What, if I may ask, was the late Mr.. Haddington's profession?"
"If you can discover that," said Miss Pickhill, "you will have discovered more than my father ever did! It was his belief that Hubert was an adventurer. Those were the very words he used. One moment they were driving about in Rolls-Royces; the next they hadn't a penny to bless themselves with! Never shall I forget the day we discovered that Lily was being sued in the County Court for a bill to a dressmaker! That was too much! As my father said at the time, one can put up with a great deal, but not with being County-Courted! However, the next time we saw her she was in her own car, with a chauffeur, so naturally my father had to allow her to enter the house, which at one time he said he never would again. That was many years ago, of course, when Cynthia was a baby. After Hubert died, she chose to gad about all over Europe, instead of coming to live at home with me, which I naturally begged her to do, because whatever my feelings may have been I've always held that blood is thicker than water, and Cynthia could have attended the High School, which, if you were to ask me, would have been far better for her than that ridiculous Swiss school Lily sent her to! But that wasn't good enough for Lily! Cynthia had to have the very best of everything! Why, when she was a toddler even, nothing would do for Lily but all her little dresses had to be hand-embroidered! Goodness only knows what she squandered on the child, from first to last! Of course, I don't deny that she's a very pretty girl, but for my sister to be setting her heart on making some grand match for her was just tempting Providence! "You'll have her running off with the chauffeur!" I said to Lily once; and never shall I forget my dear old Aunt Maud asking me if Lily meant to get the Prince of Wales for her daughter! That was a figure of speech, of course, because we hadn't got a Prince of Wales at that time, and Aunt Maud knew that just as well as anyone else, for it was only on certain subjects that her mind wandered, and then only quite at the end."
She paused for breath, and Hemingway, who, while not unappreciative of her discourse, had reached the conclusion that she knew nothing about her sister's more private affairs, seized the opportunity to ask if she could furnish him with the name of Mrs. Haddington's solicitor.
"Well, if Lily took her affairs out of our dear Mr.. Eddleston's hands, it's news to me!" replied Miss Pickhill. "Of course, I daresay it's young Mr.. Eddleston who looks after things now, but that her Will is deposited with them I do know, for Lily told me she was making me one of poor little Cynthia's trustees, just in case anything should happen to her, which she didn't for a moment expect, or I either, if it comes to that, and Mr.. Eddleston the other. For I said to her at the time, Don't name Mr.. Lowick, because if you do, I said, I shall refuse to act. Mr.. Lowick is the junior partner, and when I tell you that the day I went up to see him about the ground-rent he not only kept me waiting for ten whole minutes, but received me with a pipe in his hand, you will understand why I said what I did. There are limits!"
Jotting the name down in his book, Hemingway said: "Well, madam, I think that's all at present. I shall be getting into touch with Mr.. Eddleston at once. You'll understand that I shall have to go through Mrs. Haddington's papers, and her solicitor will of course be present. Until then, I have had the boudoir and her bedroom locked up."
Miss Pickhill plainly took this amiss, for she bridled, and said in a stiff voice: "Well, really, I can't see what you want with my poor sister's private papers, and as for locking her bedroom, I call it most officious!"
"Just a matter of routine!" Hemingway said.
"I've no doubt!" interrupted Miss Pickhill. "It's exactly what Mr.. Broseley was saying to me only the other day! Encroachment! Ever since the War, officials seem to think they can do exactly as they like, and I daresay the police are just as bad as the Ministry of Food, interfering right and left, and telling people how to cook cabbages, which we all knew long before they were ever born or thought of!"
"I wouldn't think of telling you how to cook cabbages, madam!" Hemingway assured her. "For one thing, I don't know, and for another -"
"I should hope not indeed! It would be a great deal more to the point if you drilled some of your new policemen, let me tell you! In my young days the police were fine, upstanding men, but whenever I come to London now all I see is a lot of young constables, standing about with their chests in and their stomachs out, and their mouths hanging open. I wouldn't even ask one of them for the time! Enough to make my father turn in his grave!"
Reflecting that Mr.. Pickhill's ghost must be the most restless one ever to disturb a cemetery, Hemingway said meekly: "It's a scandal, madam: I've often thought so. But I daresay you wouldn't want to stop me finding out who murdered Mrs. Haddington!"
"Certainly not! Quite apart from my personal feelings I trust I am a good citizen! Good Citizenship was the subject of the last lecture we had at the Women's Conservative Institute, and most interesting! But why prying into my sister's letters, and things, should help you to find out who murdered her is more than I can fathom!
In fact," said Miss Pickhill, obscurely but terrifyingly, "it is all on a par!"
Fortunately, the Chief Inspector was rescued from these deep waters by the entrance of Detective-officer Bagby, who informed him that Miss Haddington had that instant let herself into the house, and was being held in check by Miss Birtley.
Miss Pickhill shuddered, and got up from her chair, saying: "I will come at once! Poor child, she little knows! In the midst of life we are in death! I don't suppose she has ever heard those very true words, for, having been educated in a foreign country, how should she?"
Cynthia Haddington, exquisitely clothed in priMr..ose yellow under a coat of dark mink, and with a close hat of shaded brown and yellow wing-feathers on the back of her shining head, had been coaxed into the diningroom, and was interestedly surveying Mr.. James Kane. She held a cigarette between the fingers of one hand, and dangled a handbag and a pair of long gloves from the other. Only a purist would have described her as drunk. Not even the exaggeratedly high heels of her cutaway shoes caused her to stumble in her walk; and if her eyes seemed slightly blurred, and her inconsequent laugh a little too ready, her speech was perfectly clear. "Oh, are you Timothy's brother?" she said. "How marvellous! Oh, darling-Timothy, why weren't you at June's party? You could have taken me on to dinner somewhere! I got stuck with Philip Arnecliffe, and he was so drunk he let that ghastly Terrington woman tack herself on to us, with the latest boy friend! Too dim, so I said, Definitely not! and came home! Is Mummy livid with me? Honestly, I couldn't face spending the whole evening at home! June's got some marvellous new cocktail you make with absinthe: it makes you feel simply terrific! 0 God, is that you, Aunt Violet?… Who on earth are you?"
Hemingway, to whom the last question was addressed, preserved a tactful silence. He was a trifle stunned by this, his first, sight of Mrs. Haddington's beautiful daughter, for although he had been told that she was a very pretty girl he had not been prepared for quite so much empty loveliness.
Miss Pickhill, managing to soften the sharpness of her habitual tone, said that there was bad news for Cynthia to hear, and suggested that she should accompany her upstairs to her bedroom.
Cynthia stared at her in the blankest incomprehension. "Oh, hell, no, I don't want to trail all the way up to my room!" she protested. "Besides, why should I? No one's coming to dinner! I shall stay as I am." She blinked, as though to clear her vision, and suddenly demanded: "What are you all doing in here, anyway? You haven't had dinner, have you? Where's Mummy?"
Miss Pickhill cleared her throat. "Your dear mother has - has met with an accident, Cynthia!" she said.
"An accident? What's happened?" Cynthia asked, pitching the stub of her cigarette into the grate.
"Oh, dear, I don't know how to tell her!" said Miss Pickhill, sitting down suddenly, and, in the agitation of the moment, sniffing into one of her serviceable gloves, which she held in one hand.
"You tell her, Timothy!" Beulah said, in a low voice. "You'll do it best."
Timothy, who, with Mr.. James Kane, had been attempting in an unobtrusive way, to slide out of the room, cast his betrothed a glance of reproach, but responded to her appeal. He went to Cynthia, and took one of her hands, saying: "There isn't a best way of telling her. You've got to prepare yourself for a shock, Cynthia."
"Gosh, Mummy isn't dead, is she?"
"Yes," replied Timothy. "She is dead."
Cynthia stared at him, and then at his silent companions. She gave an uncertain laugh. "Oh, don't be so silly! Quite unfunny, darling!"
"Quite," said Timothy steadily.
"But how can she be dead? There was nothing the matter with her at tea-time! You don't mean she's been run over, or anything, do you?"
"Not run over. She's been murdered, Cynthia."
It seemed as though for a moment she scarcely took in what he said. She repeated stupidly: "Murdered? Murdered, like Dan was?"
"Yes, like that."
"But she can't be! She can't be!" Cynthia cried shrilly. "What'll happen to me?"
This exclamation not unnaturally shook her auditors. Miss Pickhill cast her a horrified glance, and then plucked at Mr.. Kane's sleeve, saying in an urgent whisper: "It's the shock! Perhaps a little drop of brandy - just to pull her together! I am an opponent of all forms of intoxicating liquor, but in a case like this - !"
"No, I don't think so," replied Jim.
"I don't believe you!" Cynthia said, pulling her hand out of Timothy's. "You're simply trying to have me on!" He said nothing. She caught her breath, and clutched the lapels of his coat, trying to shake him. "Say it isn't true! You don't understand! I shall have to go and live in Putney, or something ghastly, and I couldn't bear it! Is that why Aunt Violet's here? I won't go with her, I won't, I won't!"
"God, this is too awful!" muttered Beulah.
"Bit tight," Jim said, under his breath. "Good job. Better get her up to bed as soon as you can!"
There seemed, however, to be no immediate prospect of being able to follow out this advice. Cynthia, apparently convinced by now that her mother was indeed dead, was engaged in working herself into a state of alarming hysteria. A spate of words jostled one another on her lips and for a few moments stunned the assembled company into appalled silence. "It's all because I broke my mirror!" she said. "I knew something frightful would happen! Mummy said it was just a superstition, and now you see! Everything's gone wrong, every single thing! First I lost my powder-compact, and Dan said he'd give me another one, but he never did because he was murdered, and then everything was ghastly, and Mummy made me wear black, and was beastly about Lance, and now she's been murdered, and nobody cares about me, or what becomes of me! I wish I'd married that dreary Bill Uffington! I wish I'd married anybody! It's all Mummy's fault I'm not even engaged, because dozens of men have asked me, only she kept on saying I was too young, and could do better if I waited, and now look what's happened!"
"Cynthia!" uttered Miss Pickhill, finding her voice at last. "Be quiet, child! You don't know what you're saying!"
"Go away!" shrieked Cynthia, hurling her handbag at her aunt with more passion than accuracy. "I know what you mean to do! You mean to drag me off to that foul house of yours, and cover me up with antimacassars, and make me go to Church, and I'd rather die! And nothing will ever make me believe it wasn't you who stole my precious compact!" she added, rounding suddenly on Beulah. "It must have been either you or Mapperley, and it was you who said it was the prettiest one you'd ever seen! Mapperley said she didn't like it as well as my gold one, so that shows! Oh, what am I going to do, with only Aunt Violet left? Oh, Mummy! Oh, Dan!" She burst into a fit of wild sobbing, which turned into a succession of screams, when her aunt moved towards her. Neither her aunt's appeals, nor Timothy's stem command to her to Shut up! had the smallest effect; it was left to Mr.. Kane to put a summary end to a scene the echoes of which could probably be heard in Berkeley Square. This he did by limping to the sideboard, pouring out a tumbler of water, and casting it full in Cynthia's face. The shock startled her out of her hysteria; she gave a gasp, stood for a moment in complete silence, and then began to cry in good earnest.
"Take her up to bed!" Jim said imperatively.
Between them, Beulah and Miss Pickhill managed to get her out of the room, and up the stairs. Hemingway said: "Poor young lady! What you might call a highlystrung type. If you'll excuse me, there's a call I want to put through."
He then withdrew to the library, to discover Mr.. Eddleston's home address; and the half-brothers were left alone in the dining-room.
"Well, my God - !"said Mr.. Kane. "The company you do keep, Timothy!"
"You would come!" Timothy retorted savagely. "I told you not to!"
"Yes, but I've got to face Mother!" said Jim. "You know perfectly well she thinks that if I wasn't holding your hand at every critical stage in your career I ought to have been! Look here, Timothy, the whole of this affair's fantastic! Who murdered the woman? Have you any idea?"
"Only what I've gathered from the , questions Hemingway asked Beulah. If you rule out Beulah, and the servants, everything seems to point to Godfrey Poulton. Apparently, he was the last person to see her alive. Butterwick - you don't know him: Seaton-Carew's boy-friend - Guisborough, and Poulton all came to see her this afternoon, in that order. I don't know why, or what happened. And I can't see the ghost of a reason for either Butterwick or Guisborough to have murdered her. If, as I've rather suspected, Mrs. Haddington had been blackmailing Lady Nest, that gives Poulton a motive - but, good God, he must be mad to do it bang on top of the first murder! And I'm damned if I see why he murdered Seaton-Carew, unless Seaton-Carew was joined with Mrs. Haddington in the blackmailing business. Even then - ! Well, it doesn't make sense! He's one of those who could have murdered Seaton-Carew; so's young Butterwick - who, incidentally, is just the sort of neurotic who might have done it, in a fit of jealousy! Guisborough couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the first murder, and why he should suddenly burst in and strangle Mrs. Haddington, in exact imitation of the first death, is more than I can fathom! The only motive he's got, as far as I know, is that Mrs. Haddington didn't favour his suit, and if you think this is a good way of promoting it, all I can say is, it's too far-fetched for me!
He's an overbalanced, tiresome sort of a chap, frothing over with half-baked political ideas, but he's not by any means mad."
"Well, Poulton is most certainly not mad!" said Jim. "I don't know him well, but his reputation in the City is for long-headedness. Unexcitable chap, too. Don't bite my head off! - I'm not trying to be offensive! - but just where does Beulah stand in this imbroglio?"
"You can take it from me she didn't do it. Unless I miss my bet, she all unwittingly provided herself with an alibi. That's being checked up on at this moment. I don't think she quite grasped what Hemingway was after, but I did. If the man he's sent off to her digs finds there what she says he will - and he will! - I think the time factor will let her out. She couldn't possibly have got here from Earl's Court a minute before she says she did. And, I ask you, Jim, is it likely that she'd go all the way to Earl's Court, if she meant to slip back into the house and murder her employer? How was she to know in which room Mrs. Haddington would be, too? The likeliest bet, at that hour, would be her bedroom, with her maid in attendance! Would even a lunatic go looking into all the possible rooms in a house teeming with servants? It doesn't make sense!"
"No," Jim agreed. "But unless there's a homicidal maniac sculling about, none of it makes sense! I can just swallow Poulton's murdering someone who was blackmailing his wife - though I find that difficult, because from what I know of him he'd be far more likely to settle a blackmailer's hash in some equally ruthless but strictly legal fashion - but I can't swallow his murdering the blackmailer's partner two days later! I don't know your pal Guisborough, but I suppose, if he's crazy about that afflictive girl, and Mrs. Haddington was an effective bar to matrimony - the kid's only nineteen, isn't she? - he might have thought it would be a clever thing to murder the woman in exactly the same way the first chap was murdered, banking on Hemingway thinking that the same man must have done both deeds."
"You know, Jim, that's definitely good!" Timothy said thoughtfully. "The only snag is that it requires a coldblooded type to think of it, let alone carry it out, and Guisborough isn't that type. Far more down Poulton's street, but of course the theory doesn't fit him, because he's already a suspect for the first murder. Guisborough's an impulsive chap, and, to do him justice, I don't think he'd murder a woman with the object of marrying her daughter! He might commit a murder in the heat of the moment, but I honestly don't see him coolly plotting a crime like this."
"All right, what's your theory?"
Timothy was frowning. "I haven't really got one. The whole thing seems to hinge on the first murder, and I haven't a clue who did that. There were five people who could have killed Seaton-Carew: Mrs. Haddington, Poulton, Butterwick, Beulah, and me. You can rule Beulah and me out, and you can also rule out Mrs. Haddington. I thought at one moment that things were pointing her way. No real reason, but what Beulah told me about that wretched coil of wire made it look slightly fishy. Well, that theory seems to have ended in a pretty nasty blind alley. We're left with Poulton and Butterwick - and, of the two, Butterwick's my fancy for the first murder, and Poulton for the second. And that combination doesn't add up, look at it how you may!"
"Hold on a minute! Didn't you tell me that the doctor's movements weren't entirely accounted for that evening?"
"No, hang it all, Jim, you must draw the line somewhere! Do you see a fashionable physician strangling a man in the middle of a Bridge-party?"
"Why not? What if Seaton-Carew was a danger to him?"
"Blackmailing him, do you mean? More likely to have slipped something lethal into his drink, if he wanted to get rid of him!"
"Not at all," said Jim. "Poison would have made him instantly suspect!"
"You win that point," admitted Timothy. "Now tell me why he murdered Mrs. Haddington!"
"I haven't yet worked that one out," confessed Jim.
"And while you are working it out, work out how he got into the house without anyone's knowing it!"
"I can't."
"Of course you can't! And don't ask me to consider poor old Roddy Vickerstown, because it's a sheer waste of time. He's not above lending the light of his countenance to hopeless outsiders, who feed and wine him in the style to which he's accustomed, but he does draw the line somewhere! He's tottering round the town saying that the fellah can't be a gentleman, because strangling is the lowest form of murder, and no one with any breeding at all would dream of killing a man in somebody else's house. Damn' bad form, my boy!"
Jim grinned. "All right, wash him out too! Where do you go from there?"
"I think the first murder was premeditated, and the second wasn't. And, working from that point, it looks as if the same man did both. Quite obviously, things were desperate, and Mrs. Haddington had to be silenced. Supposing she knew who committed the first murder?"
"Then why didn't she clear herself by telling the police what she knew?"
"That's just the point: if she'd been in danger of taking the rap, she undoubtedly would have told the police. But you weren't privileged to know the lady! She was one of the most coldblooded, calculating females I've encountered. My guess - and I admit it is only a guess - is that she was planning the biggest blackmailing coup of her career, and that was why she had to be eliminated."
"Yes, but wait a bit, Timothy! What was to stop the guilty party paying up until all the smoke had cleared away, and then disposing of Mrs. Haddington, when the police were not haunting the house?"
"The fact that Mrs. Haddington was herself a suspect!" said Timothy instantly. "He dared not chance it. If she got charged with the murder, she'd spill the beans at once: she'd have to!"
"I expect there's a flaw in it somewhere," said Jim, "but I'm bound to say it's quite ingenious, if you can clear the first hurdle. Would she really cash in on the death of an old friend?"
"I should say that the only thing she wouldn't cash in on would be Cynthia," replied Timothy. "She was a remarkably repellent piece of work, but I'll hand her this!
- she was utterly devoted to that very unrewarding girl! Praise be to God, here's my intended at last! How are things, darling?"
"Nightmareish!" Beulah said, shuddering. "We've got her to bed, and Mrs. Foston's going to sit with her till she goes to sleep. I don't think it'll be long. I'm sorry for Miss Pickhill, having to take on the job of looking after her. I know she's a bit drunk, and, of course, shock does make people react queerly, but when I left she seemed to be deriving consolation from the thought that she would now be frightfully well-off, and could do anything she liked. For God's sake, take me out, and give me something to eat! With the slightest encouragement, I shall pass out, which is probably because I've had nothing but a cup of tea and a biscuit since luncheon."
"You will get no encouragement from either of us," said Timothy, taking her arm in a sustaining way, and propelling her towards the door. "Come on, Jim! Dinner!"