"I was there," Willard answered, very quietly, "exactly ten minutes. That was as long as she allowed me to stay. She seemed surprised when I knocked at the door, surprised and annoyed, as though she had been expecting somebody else. Twice while we were talking — it was in the bedroom she went out and looked through the front windows of the drawing-room. And she seemed to be growing more nervous and upset. We drank a glass of port and smoked a cigarette. But the more I pointed out that there was somebody in very cool earnest, who had made two attempts to kill her, the more amused she grew. She said, `You don't understand the chocolates; and, as for the other, I'm certainly not afraid of..’
"Who?"
"I don't know. She only stretched her arms up above her head (you know that gesture of hers?) As though she were breathing-life, and breathing it in a kind of glutted satisfaction. She was not acting then. In ten minutes she walked to the outer door with me. She was still wearing the silver gown, and the snow was growing thicker outside. That was the last I saw of her."
The snow. Bennett leaned across in the firelight. His muddled brain still kept returning to that question of the snow.
"Do you remember," he said, "exactly what time the snow began, Mr. Willard?"
"Why yes.. Yes, if it matters. It was when we took Marcia out to the pavilion, about ten minutes past twelve." `But I don't suppose you'd know what time it stopped?"
The actor wheeled round. He seemed about to answer irritably, when he saw Bennett's expression, and then looked with a quick speculative glance at Bohun.
"As it happens, I do. For reasons I'll explain, I spent a very wakeful night. First there was the dog barking. I was up and at the window any number of times, although — although my room isn't at the rear of the house and I couldn't see towards the pavilion. But I noticed how very heavy a fall of snow it was to last for so brief a time. It lasted just about two hours, roughly from a little past twelve to a little past two. The number of times I looked at my watch last night" He hesitated. "Why?"
A knocking at the door echoed hollowly across the room. Wind was rising across the Downs and rumbling in the chimney. Out of the corner of his eye Bennett saw Thompson come in.
"Excuse me, sir," said Thompson's voice. "Dr. Wynne has just arrived, and the inspector of police you sent for. There's, a definite ah of doubtful description, "there's someone else with them…"