"Or more recently?"
"We hadn't seen Martin," she answered, interlacing her fingers, "since about a month after father died, up until the time we met his boat at Southampton the day before yesterday. There has never been the slightest ill-feeling between them."
Sir Benjamin was plainly at a loss. He looked round at Dr. Fell, as though for prompting, but the doctor said nothing.
"At the moment, he went on, clearing his throat, "I can think of nothing else. It's — ah — very puzzling. Very puzzling indeed. Naturally, we don't want to subject you to any more of an ordeal than is necessary, my dear; and if you care to go back to your room…"
"Thanks. But if you don't mind," said the girl, "I should prefer to remain here. It's more-more… well, I should prefer to remain."
Payne patted her on the shoulder. "I'll attend to the rest of it," he told her, nodding towards the chief constable with dry, vicious satisfaction.
There was an interruption. They heard a nervous, whispering jabber in the hall outside, and a voice which suddenly croaked, "Nonsense!" with a shrillness so exactly like a talking crow that everybody started. Budge came sailing in.
"If you please, sir," he said to the chief constable, "Mrs. Bundle is bringing one of the housemaids who knows something about that clock."
"— now you march!" squawked the crow's voice. "You march right in there, young lady, and you speaks to 'em. It's a nice state of affairs, it's a nice state of affairs, I say, if we can't 'ave truth-telling people in the 'ouse, I say…. Pop!" concluded Mrs. Bundle, making a noise with her lips like a cork pulled out of a bottle.
Escorting a frightened housemaid, she came rolling through the door. Mrs. Bundle was a little lean woman with a sailor's walk, a lace cap coming down into her bright eyes, and a face of such extraordinary malevolence that Rampole stared. She glared upon everybody out of a dusty face, but she seemed less to be damning everybody than to be meditating some deep wrong. Then she assumed a wooden stare, which gave her a curious cross-eyed look.