"Couldn't it have been done before?" suggested Mr. Bunter.
"Well, she might have been at it between the day the Captain was killed and the inquest," agreed Ellen, "though you wouldn't think that was a time to choose to begin learning domestic work. She ain't much hand at it, anyhow, for all her nursing. I never believed that came to anything."
"She's used soap," said Mr. Bunter, benzening away resolutely. "Can she boil water in her bedroom?"
"Now, whatever should she do that for, Mr. Bunter?" exclaimed Ellen, amazed. "You don't think she keeps a kettle? I bring up her morning tea. Ladyships don't want to boil water."
"No," said Mr. Bunter, "and why didn't she get it from the bathroom?" He scrutinized the stain more carefully still. "Very amateurish," he said; "distinctly amateurish. Interrupted, I fancy. An energetic young lady, but not ingenious."
The last remarks were addressed in confidence to the benzene bottle. Ellen had put her head out of the window to talk to the gamekeeper.
The Police Superintendent at Ripley received Lord Peter at first frigidly, and later, when he found out who he was, with a mixture of the official attitude to private detectives and the official attitude to a Duke's son.
"I've come to you," said Wimsey, "because you can do this combin'-out business a sight better'n an amateur like myself. I suppose your fine organization's hard at work already, what?"
"Naturally," said the Superintendent, "but it's not altogether easy to trace a motor-cycle without knowing the number. Look at the Bournemouth Murder." He shook his head regretfully and accepted a Villar y Villar.