`Eh?' said Dalrye. `Good God! what's this?'
`Why, Robert Dalrye,' Sheila Bitton said, warmly, `you know, perfectly well…. Oh no, you don't. I remember now, when you spoke about getting back too that hateful Tower. You had to leave the table early to get there. It was the first night that Mr Arbor… no, it wasn't, because Uncle Lester wasn't there then. Anyway, it was some night. Just Daddy and Uncle Lester and Laura and I were at the table; and Philip, of course. It was the night before Laura and Uncle Lester went to Cornwall. And Philip was taking Laura to the theatre, because at the last minute Uncle Lester had business and couldn't go, you see; but they were taking the trip to Cornwall because Uncle Lester had lost a lot of money or something, and he was all run down.
`It was a sort of spooky night, you see, with rain and hail coming down. Anyway, we started talking about death. And Uncle Lester asked Daddy how he'd choose to die if he had to die. Daddy said he supposed he'd choose to die like some duke or other who said he wanted to be drowned in a barrel of wine… fancy! But then they got serious about it, the way people do, and I was getting scared because they didn't talk very loud, and it was storming outside.
`And finally Daddy said he thought he'd choose some kind of poison he talked about that kills you in one whiff when you breathe it, and Uncle Lester said he thought a bullet through the head would be best, and Laura kept saying, "What rot, what rot," and "Come on, Phil, or we'll be late for the first-act curtain." And when Phil got up from the table Uncle Lester asked him how he'd like to die. And Phil just laughed, said something in French, and Daddy told me afterwards it meant, "Always the gentleman," and he said a lot of absurd things and said… Well, anyway, he didn't care so much how he died, if he could die with a top-hat on and at least one woman to weep at his grave.'
Four pairs of eyes fixed upon her had roused even Sheila Bitton to something like nervousness. As she came towards the end of her recital she was fidgeting and talking faster and faster. Now she cried:
`Please, I won't… I won't have you looking at me like that! And I won't be put upon, and nobody ever tells me anything, and I know I've said something I shouldn't. What is he matter?'
She sprang up. Dalrye put a clumsy hand on her shoulder.
He said: `My dear!… 'and stopped because he had nothing to say.
`My dear Miss Bitton,' the chief inspector said, briskly, — `you've said nothing wrong at all. Mr Dalrye will explain, presently. But now about this morning, at the breakfast table. What was it your Uncle said about seeing Philip today?'
She hesitated, looked at Dalrye, and wet her lips.