Annie came to tell us that lunch was served.
It was a sad meal. A place had been set for Stella by mistake. The Tundish had always said a short grace before our meals; it was a practise of Hanson’s which he kept up while he was away. Ethel began to say it in his absence, but she broke down after the first sentence and had to retire to the window while she regained her self-control. What little we ate, we ate in silence. Any attempt at general conversation seemed out of place, and the thoughts that occupied all our minds were too painful for speech. Yes, and too secret for speech—for I am sure that in spite of the doctor’s appeal we were each one of us busy with conjecture. The Tundish—and if not The Tundish, then who?
We were about half-way through our meal when he returned. We heard him tell the man stationed in the hall to let Inspector Brown know that he was back, and then he opened the door.
Ethel got up at once with a little cry, and went to meet him, her arms half extended. We were all forgotten. “Oh, Tundish, I’m so glad—so glad that you’re back again,” she said, and there was such pleasure and trust in her voice, and such sympathy in her looks that it was no wonder Kenneth bit his lips and turned the other way.
The doctor looked tired, and little beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead, the result of a hurried return, I surmised, and not of fear or panic, for his eyes were steady and his look self-confident and calm.
“You goose,” he laughed, putting his hand gently on her shoulder. “But where is my thin coat? This one is well-nigh unbearable. I thought I left it hanging in the hall.”
Ethel told him how the whole of the house was being searched and how Stella’s door had had to be broken down. I was observing him very closely, as indeed I think we all were, but he showed no trace of embarrassment. His astonishment seemed both spontaneous and genuine, and to have no appearance of being overacted or forced. I concluded that it was altogether too natural to be simulated, but then I remembered how, within half a minute of his conversation with Stella in the drawing-room on the previous night, he had met me in the hall with a pleasant smile and a face that showed no trace of either trouble or concern.
Now again he was not perturbed, and he spoke quietly and without emphasis. “But I know for a fact that I did not lock the door. I intended to go back and do it and then the telephone call came through and put it out of my head. You are sure that you didn’t run up-stairs and lock it after I spoke to you in the hall?”
I assured him that I had not, and he stood for a moment obviously puzzled. I glanced round to see what the others were making of it. Kenneth sat looking straight at the doctor, fierce and grim. Ralph, his face pale and his head bent, was playing with a little heap of crumbs. Margaret was looking at Ralph.
“Ah well, that will be another little mystery for our friends the police to explain.” And he took his seat at the end of the table.