"Got any idea who it was?"
"No. What's more, I’ll swear my side of the roof was empty!" Then Martin flung this aside.
"Never mind the roof," he said. "What about the alarm-bell? I heard it ring as I went over. What happened?"
"Lord love a duck, didn't old Sophie tell you?"
"No! Either she was cantankerous, or she thought it wouldn't be a good thing to tell me. Is Stannard all right? I'll never forgive myself if anything happened to Stannard. Where's Stannard?"
"Stannard?" echoed H.M., in a huge puff of astonishment "Oh, my son! Stannard's as right as right as rain. Though," H.M. added in a curious tone, "he did get a bit of a shock. Something like you, only in a different way."
"Then if he.. what did happen?"
HM. looked at the wine-coloured carpet; teetered bulkily back and forth on his heels; hesitated, as though he could not quite place what he meant to say in the scheme of things; and looked up again.
"Murder," he answered.
And, at the same moment the front door knocker began to rap sharply.