It was Jenny who answered, Jenny with shining eyes but with the weighted and harassed air of one who has guessed too much.
"Correct," Jenny almost whispered. "I reminded Ricky himself, when he spoke about her."
"And on that roof of gaiety and delight," said H.M., "your Ricky told me — in his careless and laughin' way — she was with him till he was fourteen. Now it's fourteen instead of twelve. And at this time, he added, they pensioned her off. A pension after four years' service? I tried to keep from doin' more than blink. Either that was a lie, or else Miss Upton couldn't stand it and Cicely Fleet had to buy her silence.
"I wonder if you've begun to catch the unnatural atmosphere of Fleet House twenty years ago? The nervous, stamp-in father, who wallops his son (as the son told me) like blazes. The pretty, well-meanin' mother, who loves everybody and hopes George will get a baronetcy; and there mustn't be any scandal. Lemme give you one reminder: at Priory Hill, in November of 1925, a child was murdered and mutilated. Immediately afterwards George Fleet suddenly tore down his collection of rapiers and daggers from the wall, and gave 'em away. At that time young Fleet was in his eleventh year — Why didn't they dare send him to school? You answer."
A cold shock of horror spread through his listeners and lay inside them like lead, although two of them at least had been expecting it.
"I'm afraid, y’know," H-M. shook his head, "that in a way I did Masters in the eye. I warned him about it at the pub on Saturday afternoon. That little bit about Fleet gettin' rid of his weapons was in the original dossier I read in London. It bothered me worst of all. I rang up a friend of mine at the Evening News, and asked him if anything unpleasant had happened in this district about November, 1925. Cor! I got a answer.
"Masters learned this later, and told you. I knew beforehand. That was why I told young Drake, at Willaby's on Friday, to keep an eye out for real trouble. Because.. well now! You'll see.
"H.M.!" Ruth Callice intervened softly. "I've been a friend of poor Cicely for years. I knew she was hiding some kind of secret; but I never guessed it was an awful thing like this. And yet when I first visited there — the impression wore off later — I thought of that house as something like a prison."
(So, thought Martin, you did get the feeling too! Like mine, it wore off).
"And now," said H.M., with a sort of malevolent patience, "I want you to see everything happen from Saturday to Monday. You!' He pointed his cigar, long gone out, at Martin. "You went harin' down to Berkshire on Saturday.