"Murdered, sir!" said the startled man. "You don't mean that?"
"Quick," said Tarling sharply, "Miss Rider has fainted again."
They carried her into the drawing-room and laid her on the couch, and Tarling did not leave her until he had seen her in the hands of two women servants.
He went back with the butler to the room where the body lay. He turned on all the lights and made a careful scrutiny of the room. The window leading on to the glass-covered balcony where he had been concealed a few hours before, was latched, locked and bolted.
The curtains, which had been drawn, presumably by Milburgh when he came for the wallet, were undisturbed. From the position in which the dead woman lay and the calm on her face he thought death must have come instantly and unexpectedly. Probably the murderer stole behind her whilst she was standing at the foot of the sofa which he had partly seen through the window. It was likely that, to beguile the time of waiting for her daughter's return, she had taken a book from a little cabinet immediately behind the door, and support for this theory came in the shape of a book which had evidently fallen out of her hand between the position in which she was found and the book-case.
Together the two men lifted the body on to the sofa.
"You had better go down into the town and inform the police," said Tarling. "Is there a telephone here?"
"Yes, sir," replied the butler.
"Good, that will save you a journey," said the detective.
He notified the local police officials and then got on to Scotland Yard and sent a messenger to arouse Whiteside. The faint pallor of dawn was in the sky when he looked out of the window, but the pale light merely served to emphasise the pitch darkness of the world.