That was all. Her slow, throaty voice never faltered as she told it, and her eyes remained fixed on Sir Benjamin; the full pink lips, devoid of make-up, hardly seemed to move at all. At the conclusion, she sat back and looked at the sunlight in one unshuttered window.
"Miss Starberth," said Dr. Fell, after a pause, "I wonder if you'd mind my asking a question?… Thank you. Budge has told us that the clock in the hall out there was wrong last night, though none of the others were. When you say that he left the house at twenty minutes to eleven, do you mean the time by that clock, or the right time?"
"Why―" she looked at him blankly; then down at her wristwatch and up at the clock on the mantelpiece. "Why, the right time! I'm positive of it. I never even glanced at the clock in the hall. Yes, the right time."
Dr. Fell relapsed, while the girl regarded him with a slight frown. Evidently nettled at this irrelevancy being brought in again, Sir Benjamin began to pace up and down the hearth rug. You felt that he had been nerving himself up to ask certain questions, and the doctor's interruption had scattered his resolves. Finally he turned.
"Budge has already told us, Miss Starberth, about Herbert's entirely unexplained absence…."
She inclined her head.
"Think, if you please! You are positive that he never mentioned the possibility of leaving suddenly-well, that is, you can think of no reason for his doing so?"
"None," she said, and added, in a lower voice: "You needn't be so formal, Sir Benjamin. I understand the implications as well as you do."
"Well, to be frank, then: the coroner's jury is likely to put an ugly interpretation on it, unless he returns immediately. Even so you see? Has there been any ill-feeling between Herbert and Martin in the past?"
"Never."