Something gave a wild and blind rush. Bennett felt his heel slip off into nowhere, his hand go out over a bottomless gulf. His stomach seemed to rush up as he felt himself falling; but even in that second he knew he must not clutch at anybody or there would be two broken necks. The heel met gritty stone; his hip twisted, and then he crashed backwards into the side of the wall.
He was still there. He had not fallen, for he was pulling himself up with shoulder and leg muscles quivering like jangled strings even as the press elbowed back into the King's Room.
"Lights!" he heard H. M. shout. "You, over by the door! Emery! Turn those lights on. "
A glare sprang up and filtered out on to the landing. Shaken and still unsteady, Bennett pulled himself upright from a crab-like position against the wall several treads down. Kate Bohun was helping them. They got through into King Charles's Room. The group had scattered back as though they surrounded a bomb. H.M. had just made a fierce gesture to Emery, who stood at the light-switch with a rather more startled expression on his face than the sound of a confession from Louise Carewe would seem to warrant. Through Bennett's mind flashed H. M.'s instructions to Emery. "Whatever you see or hear, don't speak until-"
What? What was the damned game, and what was there to be seen?
Bennett stared at Louise, who stood in the middle of the room with the others round her. Maurice was smiling, and Willard passing a hand over his face in evident bewilderment.
"Don't look at me," said Louise in a low voice. She was panting, and her hair had been disarranged. She seemed to hold her head low as she looked swiftly round the group. "Don't you know anything besides cheap tricks? Isn't it cheap and cheap and more cheap? I pushed her. What of it? I'd do it again."
Maurice held up the brass candlestick as though in salute. "Thank you, my dear girl," he said gently. "That was all Sir Henry and I wished to know. It was you who attempted the murder. We know you didn't kill Miss Tait, and that Rainger did. We simply wished to complete the picture. That was all Sir Henry and I cared to know."
"Was it?" inquired H. M.
He raised his voice only a little, but it echoed.