Her hands darted up. After a pause she said:
"Louise was hysterical. She'd had a scare. "
"Just so. That is, Miss, from what I've heard of the story as it was being described to Dr. Wynne, and a few intimations from Mr. Willard, all we can be certain of was that she was lying senseless near your door with a bloodstain on her wrist… What time was it you found her?"
"I–I don't know what to say to you." She hesitated, studying him from under heavy eyelids, and suddenly added with her own sometimes shattering frankness: "I'd lie to you like a shot, if I knew what time Marcia had been killed. But I don't, so I'll tell the truth. It was some time between half-past three and four o'clock… Honestly, truthfully, now, you don't really believe-?"
Masters chuckled.
"Now, now! You've got to excuse me, you know, if I don't accuse a young lady of murder before I've ever even seen her. I'd lie to you like a shot, only I've got to have a bit more evidence. It looks queer. But then," he hammered his fist into his palm, "as neat a case as I've ever heard at the Old Bailey was put forward against your uncle. I mean your Uncle John. Lummy, but it was neat! And it was the only thing, you'd think, that could explain an impossible situation. Next thing we know, witnesses come along and blow it sky high. It doesn't mean he's not guilty because he didn't get back here until three o'clock; but it means he's as innocent as anybody else. Maybe more so. Certainly more so if those tracks of his can be proved honest, but it leaves us with an impossible situation again, and what sticks in my craw even worse than that is… Yes?"
He whirled round. Inspector Potter, breathing hard, hurried into the dining-room. When he saw the other occupants, he checked himself on the point of excited speech; but Masters irritably gestured him to go on.
"Shouldn't 've taken so long," Potter said heavily, "but the police surgeon's here and the van for the body; oh, ah! — and my two men for the fingerprints and photographs. I've phoned the chief constable to phone Scotland Yard, and you may step in any time you like. But the rest of it's no good. Won't work! Those footprints..:'
Masters expelled his breath hard.
"They're all right?" he demanded.