“Grace is a bad lot, Miss Hanson, and got no more than she deserved,” Allport answered. “I’ve seen her in the hospital, and I’ve looked up her record which is almost a record in itself. She told me that she actually saw Miss Hunter coming out of Miss Palfreeman’s room on Tuesday evening, but that she didn’t like to say anything because of the family honor! You should have heard her attempt at the old family retainer touch. What she really meant, was that she hoped to do better for herself by blackmailing Miss Hunter.”
“I wonder why she seemed to threaten you so on the landing that night then, Doctor—do you remember her ‘I knows what I knows, Dr. Wallace,’ ” I asked, turning to The Tundish.
“No, I can’t quite understand that either,” he replied thoughtfully. “It was silly, if she was really trying to blackmail Margaret, but after all she was half fuddled with whisky and doubtless resented my remarks about the dinner.”
I told them how I had heard cook’s threatening voice from one of the upper windows, and we concluded that it was to Margaret she had been speaking then.
The pauses in our conversation were growing longer. The thrush had finished his song and had gone to roost. Now I could barely make out Janet’s eyes, so dark had it become, though I could still see the clear-cut oval of her face; and the light having gone I could feast on what I saw. She should not leave Dalehouse, I resolved, before I had made some real attempt to secure an early further meeting.
“When did she get up-stairs to throw away the glass?” The Tundish asked, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and pulling the window to. “She can have had very slight opportunity after breakfast.”
“I can tell you that,” I answered him. “When I stood at the telephone trying to get through to the police station, Margaret came out of the dining-room. I thought that she went down to the kitchen, but she must have run up-stairs. I didn’t hear her, but the call was difficult and maybe I was shouting. A little later I did think that I heard some one come down, only I was too engrossed to look round.”
Then I told them of the conversation I had had with Margaret in the garden, and of how she had told me that she had heard some one on the stairs and had thought it was me and had directly accused me of hiding the bedroom key.
“That’s it then,” Allport said with satisfaction. “She was pumping you to find out if you had heard or seen anything that might have been dangerous to her.”
“I hate to think about her. What will happen to her, John?” Janet’s low voice was full of sympathy.