“Mr. Wadsworth, who was with me in the Drawing Room; Mr. Courtenay, a neighbour, and Mr. and Mrs. Truxton, who also live nearby.”
“Mrs. Truxton, the jewel collector?”
“Yes; that is the one.”
“There was no one else at dinner?”
“Only the family group; Mr. and Mrs. Stannard, Mr. Barry Stannard, Miss Vernon and myself.”
“Once again, Mrs. Faulkner, you attach no significance to the words, ‘Natalie, not Joyce,’ which Blake quotes Mr. Stannard as saying?”
Taken thus unexpectedly, Mrs. Faulkner hesitated. Then she said, steadily: “I do not. They were the articulation of a brain already clouded by approaching death. He merely named the people he saw nearest to him.”
“That is not true! Eric meant what he said!”
It was Joyce Stannard who spoke.